How to Send a Large Video From Your iPhone

iPhones offer great camera capabilities to capture amazing videos. If you’ve just filmed your favorite moment and wish to share it with your friends and family, you’ve come to the right spot. This explainer will help you with easy ways to send a large video from your iPhone. 

Sending a recorded or pre-existing video from your iPhone might sound easy, but it all boils down to the file size. While small video files occupying a few megabytes can be easily sent through text, iMessage, or email, sending videos with large file sizes requires other nifty alternatives like iCloud, Google Drive, and AirDrop. Additionally, you can use instant messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram to effortlessly send videos from your iPhone.

How to Send a Large Video From Your iPhone

1. Using iMessage

If you’ve configured MMS or enabled iMessage on your iPhone, you can send videos. However, each has its respective file size limitations.

For example, MMS permits you to send a 200-300KB video (depending on your carrier network), while iMessage has a cap of 100MB per message. Consequently, sent videos are heavily compressed and delivered with low quality, compared to their original resolution. 

1. Open the Messages app and select the conversation to send a new video. Alternatively, press the Compose button in the top-right and pick your desired contact.
2. Tap + in the bottom-left corner.
   
3. Press Camera to record a new video. You can also tap Photos to select an existing video from your device.
   
4. To pick an existing video, switch to Albums and browse Videos under Media Types. Select your preferred video to send and tap Done in the top-right.
   
5. Finally, press the green or blue Send button. The former color denotes MMS, while the latter indicates the video is sent through iMessage.

2. Use Gmail or Mail Drop

Besides text/iMessage, you can use Gmail to send videos as an attachment from your iPhone. You can send up to 25MB attachments, but they shouldn’t collectively breach the specified size limit.

If your video file size is over 25MB, Gmail will automatically upload the files to Google Drive and add a link to your email for easy sharing. The maximum video file size limit for a Google Drive link depends on your Google account’s storage and can be expanded with a Google One subscription.

1. Open the Gmail app and tap Compose in the bottom right.
2. Type the recipient’s address and press the Attach button.
   
3. Expand All next to Photos.
4. Tap Albums at the top and press Videos.
   
5. Pick your desired video and tap Choose to finalize the selection.
6. Finally, press Send to email the video. If the attachment is over 25 MB, Gmail will automatically create and include its Google Drive link in your email.
   

Like Gmail, you can send large video files up to 5GB as an attachment with Apple’s Mail Drop feature that utilizes iCloud.

However, email attachments in Apple Mail do not count against your iCloud storage and expire automatically after 30 days. Further, Mail Drop offers a free 1TB storage limit that refreshes automatically when old attachments expire. Here’s how you can use the Mail Drop feature to send a large video from your iPhone:

1. Open the Mail app on your iPhone and sign in with your iCloud account.
2. Compose a new email to your desired recipient and attach your video file (up to 5GB).
3. Click the Blue send button and tap Use Mail Drop when prompted.
4. Viola! You’ve successfully shared a video from your iPhone using its Mail Drop feature.

3. Through iCloud

If you’re facing difficulty sending large video files from your iPhone, cloud storage is your best solution. Several cloud service providers like Google Drive and Dropbox offer free storage to upload and share your files conveniently. Additionally, you can use Apple’s native cloud service, iCloud, to upload and generate a shareable link to send videos to anyone. You get 5GB of free iCloud storage with your Apple account, which you can expand with a nominal subscription fee.

1. Access iCloud in the Safari browser app and Sign In to your account.
2. Tap Photos.
   
3. Press Albums in the bottom right and tap Videos.
4. Select your desired synced video and tap Share in the bottom left.
   
5. Press the Copy Link.
6. Finally, copy the link and share it with the recipient. Anyone who has access to this link can view the shared video.
   

4. Use Telegram or WhatsApp

Instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook Messenger are other great alternatives to sharing videos from your iPhone. WhatsApp offers a default video size limit of 64MB and 32MB to fast and slow internet users for sending videos. Further, if you’re sending a large video, you need to trim it to 6 minutes before sending. 

This restriction, however, can be easily avoided by sending your large video file as a document. WhatsApp allows you to send a document up to 2GB in file size easily. This means you can share a video file to up to 2GB directly with your contacts using WhatsApp.

1. Open your desired contact in WhatsApp and tap the Attachment icon.
2. Press Gallery and pick the video you wish to share. If the video file is large you can send it as a Document.
3. Finally, tap the green Send button.

As for Telegram, you can share video files with your contacts up to 2 GB per file, making it a popular platform for file-sharing. Here’s how you can send a video to someone from your iPhone on Telegram:

1. Open Telegram and browse your desired conversation.
2. Tap the Attachment icon at the bottom.
3. Expand the Gallery and pick the video you wish to send.
   
4. Finally, tap the blue Send button in the bottom right.
   

Alternatively, you can send videos with Facebook Messenger if you prefer using it over WhatsApp and Telegram. But make sure to compress and resize the video before sending it, as Facebook Messenger has a 25MB video size cap.

5. Via AirDrop

Lastly, with AirDrop, you can send unlimited videos from your iPhone to nearby Apple devices. To get started, all the devices must be in proximity and connected to the same Wi-Fi network for fast transfer speeds. 

1. Open the video you wish to share in the Photos app.
2. Tap Send in the bottom left and pick AirDrop.
   
3. Wait a few seconds to discover nearby Apple devices and tap a discovered device to send it.
4. The recipient will receive a transfer popup to accept or decline it. Once accepted, the video transfer will initiate in the encrypted mode.

Don’t Miss Out on Sharing Videos

Irrespective of the file size, sending a video from your iPhone doesn’t require any heavy lifting. You can use in-built features like iMessage, Mail Drop, and AirDrop to conveniently share videos with distant or nearby Apple devices. Additionally, you can rely on cloud storage services, and instant messaging apps to securely send your videos from one end to another.

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