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gmail drafts not saving message

  • 5 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

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Been getting this on one message. I had a video attached, around 35 MB.

I clicked Retry over and over, and it kept coming back. I clicked Save, and it went away for a while, then returned.

I suspect it's because TB is not able to save this size email to gmail. Is that why?

Been getting this on one message. I had a video attached, around 35 MB. I clicked Retry over and over, and it kept coming back. I clicked Save, and it went away for a while, then returned. I suspect it's because TB is not able to save this size email to gmail. Is that why?
Attached screenshots

All Replies (5)

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An email in Drafts is assumed that it will get sent, as the size is way beyond the limits imposed by gmail, perhaps this is why it is not being saved.

re Size Gmail like all servers have limits on size when it comes to size of email including attachments. 25MB Also be aware that the receiving server may have lower limits. A limit on the size of an email doesn't imply you can send attachments that approach that size because of the text encoding can increase the real size of email by as much as 37%. https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6584?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

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ok, thanks for explaining, makes sense.

Perhaps the TB devs could update that message, to something like:

"Total email size exceeds gmail storage capacity. Please reduce the size" yada yada yada, so it's more clear to me and others who end up with this issue.

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pranaman said

ok, thanks for explaining, makes sense. Perhaps the TB devs could update that message, to something like: "Total email size exceeds gmail storage capacity. Please reduce the size" yada yada yada, so it's more clear to me and others who end up with this issue.

Why would you think you could send an email that size on a service with a 25mb limit. Add in the "growth" that occurs when a file is attached (mime encoding) of about 40% you are building an email that is probably more than twice as big as google allows.

It is all well and good to suggest a better message, but what message to you think Thunderbird is getting from the network? My guess is an error because google simply stops accepting data. So all Thunderbird knows in an network error occurred.

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I tried to attach an 8 second video. Did not think that would be such a big deal.

I was not aware of such a limit until this thread.

Might be a lot to ask, but I always hope a program, any program, makes things easy for user base, and not have to have them guess what is wrong.

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When an email fails to be sent or not deliverable, the server will send out a failed message of some type and that is sent to you because you were the sender. Thunderbird is showing you the failed message, just as it would show you any email that is sent to you. Thunderbird did not create it.

It is not for Thunderbird to explain what is going on for every message that any server for any type of account, can send to someone who is using that server to send emails. I very much doubt that any email client would be able to offer that information.

If you were sending via gmails webmail access to your your account, then gmail may have flagged up a more helpful message as gmail will know and understand it's own limits. As another example, if you used outlook.com webmail, it may advise you use Onedrive.

It should be your interest to know what you are allowed to do. If you have a gmail account and you are sending large files then you should be looking on the gmail forums, FAQ's etc for such information on limits.

These links have some useful information.