Email Attachments

[Raz316]

User A sent an email to User B, C, D and E with 75mb of attachments.

I've always told users not to email attachments to each other, instead using our network share. They never listen, ever.

I want to disable the ability to send such large emails, but I need an easy alternative for the users.

Have any of you used certain solutions for this kind of thing?

Thanks
-Chris

[Funkstar]

There is an easy alternative, it's called "our network share"

Isn't there a version of Messenger you can use privately on your network? they could always send files to each other that way.

[Lee H]

Have any of you used certain solutions for this kind of thing?

Microsoft One Note.

We use this in work as a centralised drop & share for quotes/spreadsheets so people can get access to them quick and easy without searching through heaven and earth to find them.

It works very well for this type of purpose

[scaryjim]

Assuming that the network shares are set up as mapped drives when the users log on (if they're not then that's your first step ):

set up your mail server to refuse any email larger than, say, 1MB*
when they complain about their emails not getting through, point out the company policy of using the network shares.

Job Done

*yes, I know this won't be practical because you still need to send and receive attachments outside of the organisation, but you should be able to work something out

[1stRaven]

Just as a query, why is 75mb of attachments an issue? Increasing exchange database size or company policy?

I ask as we had the same issue and where I was able to drop the size limit of email that exchange would accept to 30 mb, our database was still growing quickly. In the end, we rolled out a piece of software called MailMeter which strips out old attachments from the exchange database and replaces them with a link. Reduced our database size by around 50%.

The other option is to limit the size of the user's mailbox so if they send a large number of 'big' attachments, they will quickly fill their mailbox and will have to delete emails in order to recieve/send again.

[ChaosSystem]

Common network shares and company policy is the way to stop this. Within the email program you can limit the size of attachments.
Under Exchange, only one copy of the attachment is stored in the database. So one use sending to 4 users would leave one attachment in the Exchange DB.

[Moby-Dick]

SMTP is not a file transfer protocol

There a load os alternative for things like this - sharepoint team sites being a good choice , or if you wont want to pay then get your users to set up something like dropbox - or publish an internal wiki site ?

[Moby-Dick]

Common network shares and company policy is the way to stop this. Within the email program you can limit the size of attachments.
Under Exchange, only one copy of the attachment is stored in the database. So one use sending to 4 users would leave one attachment in the Exchange DB.

Assuming the users are all on the same mailstore Single instance storage has quite a few gotchas and while it helps isn't something you want to 100% rely on.

[badass]

Assuming the users are all on the same mailstore Single instance storage has quite a few gotchas and while it helps isn't something you want to 100% rely on.

Not only that, Exchange 2010 lost SIS to make way for it's many other improvements.

[badass]

SMTP is not a file transfer protocol

You know this, I know this. Every Exchange Admin knows this. Convincing the users of this however is extremely difficult and the only way of doing this is to get management backing across the business and enforce limits on mailbox size, item age and item size whilst providing a proper alternative for the users to use such as the ones you mentioned.
We are having loads of problems due to users always having it their way and now trying to change the way they use the IT resources to be more cost effective is proving nearly impossible. FFS we still have several users that think the deleted items is a place to keep emails!
However on that one we got the backing of the entire management team and changed one of our IT policies to say deleted items are removed after 35 days and use MRM to enforce this.
The database is still growing out of control due to an understandable reluctance of the IT manager to force limits on mailbox size of our users who are used to abusing the email system. We're going to try the carrot approach and back that up with training. If that doesn't work, we weill have no choice but to use the stick. (to beat them with )

[ChaosSystem]

Explain to IT Management and Users that large mailboxes:
1. Tie up resources - storage cost, backup media, backup time.
2. Affect stability - restoring becomes unreliable, restoring deleted emails takes a long time.

Show the size requirements, x users allowed y amount of email capacity requires xy amount of storage x 2 for safe restoration. Add users that have left as the mailbox may need to be kept.

[fedor]

It depend on your email server. Usually, you can set the max size of attachments in server's settings.

[Raz316]

Sorry everyone, I completely forgot I asked this here (embarrassed face).

SMTP is not a file transfer protocol

You know this, I know this. Every Exchange Admin knows this. Convincing the users of this however is extremely difficult

Ain't that the truth! I think I am stuck though, the two worst offenders own the company I work for....

[Jay]

if all else fails setup an openfire server and roll out Spark to the users, they can send files just like they could in MSN or Skype but its an internal system. It can be intergrated into AD so they can use the same username and password etc.

[MaddAussie]

We have an internal Jabber server which we are slowly trying to educate users to use rather than send files internal via email

[Jay]

We have an internal Jabber server which we are slowly trying to educate users to use rather than send files internal via email

I thought Jabber and Openfire where the same thing?