Sometimes you’ll run into a situation when you have an attachment that is just too big to send through your regular email carrier. For example, I have Comcast and I know anything greater than five megabytes through Comcast will not get through.

So, are you stuck? Not necessarily so.

Here’s a great tool that I use in such circumstances. It’s an online virtual vault. It’s called Big Vault. To check it out go to www.bigvault.com.

This site has been very handy for me for when I have files greater than five megabytes in size, files that just won’t dip down to a size below that limit. It’s also a great way to get files over to a client when they might be having trouble with their email system, but do have access to a web browser.

Big Vault works like this. You go ahead and setup an account. Now, within that account, you can setup folders. With each folder then, you can setup a particular password for that folder and setup some characteristics for that folder, such as how much file size and total you want folder to be able to have.

Then you send instructions to your user for accessing that folder. You give them the Big Vault website. You give them the name of your vault, which is your overall vault name for all your different folders. But, then you give them the password, which is going to be unique to that folder where for that client. When the client does the access, they go right to their folder. They don’t see any of the other folders.

Now, when they see that folder, they’ll be able to see what files are contained in that folder. Next to the listing of the folder will be an icon that they can click on to download the file and save it to their computer. Problem solved.

Of course, you first have to get the file uploaded in the first place. Well, that’s not too difficult either with Big Vault. You login to your overall folder. Then click on the individual folder where you want to upload the file and then click on the upload button. A quick java script program will install. Then you select the file you’re looking for through a process similar to Windows Explorer. Then you click upload and the file gets uploaded. One point to note, you’ll see a horizontal bar scrolling across showing the progress on uploading your file. You will get 99% of the way there. That will take a little bit of time to finish. Perhaps, a couple minutes, perhaps more if you have a very large file. So don’t think it’s going to be quite an instantaneous upload. However, you can keep Big Vault in the background and do some other work while it’s finishing the upload.

So, when you have too large of a file to send by email, go to Big Vault, and your problem’s solved. You’re able transmit files too large to email.