A photo straight from a modern phone is usually several megabytes. Attach ten of them and you're past most email limits before you've written a word. The recipient doesn't need all those pixels, either: they'll view the photos on a screen that shows a fraction of them. Resizing before you send is quicker for you, lighter for them, and in almost every case invisible.
The limits you're working against
- Gmail allows up to 25 MB of attachments per message. Beyond that it offers to send a Google Drive link instead.
- Outlook typically allows 20 MB, and offers OneDrive links for anything larger. Company mail servers often set their own, sometimes lower, limit.
- Attachments are encoded for sending, which adds roughly a third to their size. A server's limit can therefore be reached before your files add up to it.
- The recipient's side matters too: a full inbox or a slow mobile connection can reject or stall a large message that left your outbox without complaint.
What size should an emailed photo be?
We took a detailed photograph (2560 × 1600 pixels, 4.69 MB as it came from the camera) and saved it at different sizes as JPG at quality 80:
| Long edge | File size | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Original | 4.69 MB | Archiving and professional printing: send via a link, not an attachment |
| 2048 px | 431 KB | Photos the recipient might print at standard photo size (10 × 15 cm) |
| 1600 px | 274 KB | Viewing on any laptop or phone screen: the best all-round choice |
| 1280 px | 187 KB | Sending lots of photos at once |
| 1024 px | 118 KB | Quick previews, or images placed in the body of a message |
At 1600 pixels, ten photos come to under 3 MB, comfortably inside every limit, and they still fill a laptop screen edge to edge. That's our default recommendation when you don't know how the photos will be used.
Why 2048 for printing? A standard 10 × 15 cm print at 300 dpi needs 1772 pixels on its long side, so 2048 covers it with room to spare. Anything bigger, like an A4 print or a poster, needs the original file.
How to resize
In your browser, several photos at once
Our image resizer works in the browser on phones and computers alike, and nothing is uploaded. Set the width (1600 is a good start), leave “Lock aspect ratio” on, add all your photos, and download them together as a ZIP.
If the photos are already a sensible size but the files are still heavy, the image compressor reduces the quality setting instead and can cap the width at the same time.
Image Compressor Make the file smaller without making the picture worse.
On Windows 11: the Photos app
Open the photo, click the … (See more) menu, choose Resize image, pick a preset or enter a custom size, and save a copy.
On a Mac: Preview
Open the photo (or select several in Preview's sidebar), choose Tools → Adjust Size, enter a width with “Scale proportionally” ticked, then save or export.
On an iPhone: Mail itself
When you send photos with the built-in Mail app, it often asks which size to send: Small, Medium, Large or Actual Size. Large is a sensible choice for viewing on screen. Gmail and Outlook's apps don't offer this, so resize first if you use them.
In Outlook on Windows
While composing a message with photos attached, go to File → Info and tick Resize large images when I send this message. It's convenient, but it picks the size for you, so resize yourself if the photos need to stay reasonably large.
Attach or paste into the message?
Pasting a photo into the body of an email looks friendly, but some email apps recompress or shrink images that are pasted in, and the recipient can't always save them easily. For anything the recipient needs to keep, such as documents, receipts or photos to print, attach them.
When not to email photos at all
- Sending for print or professional use: send the originals through a sharing link (Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud) so nothing is reduced.
- Dozens of photos, such as an event or a trip: a shared album is easier on everyone than a chain of emails.
- Photos of documents: combine them into a single PDF, which is easier to read, print and file than ten separate pictures.
JPG to PDF Collect several images into one tidy PDF document.
Phone photos carry hidden details: the camera model, the time, and often the GPS location where the photo was taken. Our image resizer and compressor redraw each image to produce the new file, and that hidden information isn't carried over. If you'd rather not share where a photo was taken, that's a good reason to pass it through a resizer before sending.
A quick recipe
- Resize to 1600 pixels on the long side (2048 if they might print).
- Save as JPG at quality 80–85.
- Check the total: under 15 MB leaves room with any provider.
- Send the originals via a link if anyone needs full resolution.
Not sure whether JPG is even the right format? Our comparison of JPG, PNG and WebP covers when each one makes sense.