As of Tuesday, May 15th, email messages sent through the Ithaca College email system will have a new, smaller limit of 25 MB per total individual message size (which includes the text and any attachments). This change is in preparation for our June 2012 move to Microsoft Live@edu, which also has a 25 MB message size limit that is common for many widely-used email services.
Please note that "attachment size" is not the same as "total message size". For example, a message with a 20 MB attachment may end up having a total message size exceeding 25 MB when it is sent. Any message that is larger than 25 MB will bounce with an error of "Message size exceeds maximum message size," and the file will need to be distributed/shared using another method (see below).
Existing email messages that are larger than 25 MB will still be accessible in our current email system. However, these messages cannot be moved to the Live@edu servers. We are making the change on our current servers now so that ITS will have time to contact users who have "over limit" messages. These users will be contacted directly to provide them with instructions on how to identify such messages so that they can be deleted or saved elsewhere.
We recognize that this change may be inconvenient for some users who need to send or receive messages with large attachments. However, distribution of large files via email can be inefficient for overall email system performance, and often contributes to email quota issues. There are many other ways to share large files, depending on who they need to be shared with and whether they are public or private files. Existing options include sharing via Web Profile Manager (posting the file for download by others), Sakai, myHome Community, and a host of online tools such as the popular Dropbox service.
Once the college moves to Live@edu, all users will have 7 GB of sharable file storage via SkyDrive. Files in SkyDrive can easily be shared with the IC community as well as external users.
Additional information about the move to Live@edu will posted to Intercom in the coming weeks.
ITS Helpdesk
104 Job Hall
helpdesk@ithaca.edu
274-1000
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20120509151344607