Classic Workplace Moves: The Attachment Embedder

My work mailbox has a 10Mb limit to it and so every week I have to clear out messages with large attachments (so I don’t into “mail jail”) but I recently realized that this also applies to attachments in calendar invites. Many times I get invites and accept them not knowing there are large files attached to them which then takes up space. Unless you archive your calendar on a regular basis these files will take up a lot of space.

There are people who like to put large files into calendar invites who I call “attachment embedders” and usually these files are something that can easily be put as text in the invite. For example, I have received invites with powerpoint agendas that when you open the file, there is a cover page, table of contents and then one page with three bullets for the agenda. Why not just put the three bullets into the calendar invite?

So my advice to people is send links to documents. Not only does this not take up space but it also allows for documents to be updated and therefore people are always working from current versions. It also helps in avoiding the scavenger hunt game of ‘find the large files’ in the calendar – I am not very good at that game.