e-mails

[Caran]

Is there a limit to the number of words in an email? I have sent a very long email to 4 recipients and have note had any response apart from a failure to deliver notice to one of them saying something like failed due to being out of time or taken too long. I am reluctant to email again asking if they all received my email. Does anyone know if there is a limit. Thanks for any help.

[scotman]

There is usually a limit on file size which ultimately depends on number of characters. If you have no attached images or things there should not be a problem with most normal messages.

[alexanderd]

I have had them refused when I have sent attachments as it makes the file size too large so it probably means your message is too long

[AlBags]

No.

Of couse .. attachments with pictures/html content, etc, are a different matter.

If it was text only, it would have to be a text amounting to 10Mb in size ... nigh on impossible .. that would be the biggest text email I have ever seen or heard of : )

[Caran]

Thanks Scotman, I have just counted the number of lines there are 70 and an average of 20 words per line, would that be excesssive?

[rojash]

"Is there a limit to the number of words in an email"

Well assuming that an average word length of 7 characters plus a space, It's a good idea to limit your e-mails to a maximum of about 1.5 million words.

:-)

[rojash]

"70 and an average of 20 words per line, would that be excesssive? "
Most definitely not

[Caran]

Thanks also Alexanderd an Albags, it was just text no attachments

[Buenchico]

It's possible that your email provider might place a limit on the number of words but I've certainly never heard of any provider doing so. It's more usual to place a limit on the total file size of the email, including any attachments.

Many email services won't accept mail with a size of over, say, 10Mb. It's easy to exceed that size if you're attaching pictures taken with a digital camera but almost impossible with just text. (I've written 22,000 words of a novel and the file size is still only 0.223Mb. Unless you've just typed out 'War and Peace', it's unlikely that your email was too big!)

Chris

[AlBags]

Did you email anything larger than the Oxford dictionary in it's entirety?
Probably not : )

[DTCwordfan]

would have to be the global dictionary....I have some 300k words under file at the moment and that is on 700k-800kb on a .rtf file......(haven't added it up)

[Caran]

Why did get a failure notice tho for one of tem, it was the last name on the list if that made a difference?

[Buenchico]

The failure notice could simply be because the recipient's email service was down. It can even be happen when the recipient has actually received the mail. (Your email provider's server tries to send the message, and waits for an electronic acknowledgement. If it fails to get that acknowledgement, it re-sends them mail. It keeps on trying for a set number of attempts (perhaps 100). If it still doesn't get an acknowledgement it returns an error message to you. However if the recipient's system was working properly, apart from the acknowledgement part, he'll have received 100 copies of your mail!).

[Caran]

There's a lot more to this email business than the "normal" - "no offence Chris" person realises. I'll have to be patient and let nature take it's course. Thanks for all advice.

[Buenchico]

You'd only cause me offence if you called me 'normal', Carandrog ;-)

I'll settle for 'odd', 'eccentric' or just plain 'weird'!