The Help file for Mail says,
"You can use Mail Drop to send files that exceed the maximum size allowed by the provider of your email account. Mail Drop uploads the large attachments to iCloud, where they’re encrypted and stored for up to 30 days."
The provider for my imap accounts, ICDSoft, says they have no such quota. I would like to choose a number myself, or decide on a per-message basis whether Mail Drop will be used. Can I?
I agree, Edward. In fact I've gone back to using Postbox, a pretty good imap client that uses Dropbox links or normal attachments under the full control of the sender.
But I would guess there's hope. While some design deficiencies are difficult to correct, the lack of a user-settable threshold in Mail is clearly not. The software is already in place for looking at an undisclosed threshold value. To change that to looking at a Preferences item should be trivial. And, it's hard to think of an objection to providing transparency and control to those who want it.
Also, @actionmarker, you raised some concerns about the security of the Dropbox links into the user's own storage. I don't believe there's any reason for concern, given how this is done. The link contains a long arbitrary string which maps to a single file somewhere in the Dropbox world. The proximity of our personal files to each other in folders isn't real; it's a metaphor that helps us deal with the complex reality of pointers and data structures that constitute the actual data. So, as long as the underlying technology (Dropbox or iCloud) is secure -- a big IF, of course -- the Dropbox approach should be as safe as any other.
I do worry about the late binding of the Dropbox approach, though, i.e. that a user following the link always gets the latest version of the file rather than the file as it was when the link was created. For some purposes that's a great advantage; for others not so much. Of course, the sender could always make a copy of the file that will be used only by the link if he wants a point-in-time reference.
There are two values in com.apple.mail.plist
maxSizeKB set to 5000000,0000000000000000
minSizeKB set to 20000,0000000000000000
I changed the minSizeKB to 10000,0000000000000000 and testing it now how and if it works.
That did not work out. It seems there's no way to edit your post here?
Anyways, I think the only solution that truly works is Cargolifter from ChungwaSoft.
I am not advertising and by no way connected to that company but it offers a solution that is flexible. There might be others as well but that I have tested and it works and you can choose which cloud storage to use (specially important for customers in China!).
As a long time lover of all things Apple, I'd like to say that Apple's implementation of Air Drop is really, really, really poor on the user side.
It is a simple fix and I don't really feel like having to contact Apple for something so obvious. I have just spent over an hour, trying to configure Mail Drop to send a 3.3MB attachment on OS 10.12.3. (my mail recipient obviously has a very low email size limit)
I have tried the terminal command and set the limit to 3000, even 2000. Have restarted Mail. Sent it via iCloud accounts and have ensured Mail Drop is enabled. It just simply does not work for me.
Simply allow one to double click over an attachment and choose: "Send via Mail Drop".. done.. simple.. No overthinking. Really do they think that a million people are going to use that feature.. No, only the ones who need it.
I finally ended up using DropBox.. An hour later .. Just to send an email..
Poor implementation of Mail Drop
Setting size for Mail Drop feature
