I am often asked by clients if they can send an attachment with a Mailchimp campaign. For example, a client asked this morning “can you tell us if we can attach a PDF to the EDM schedule that we are currently sending out through Mailchimp? We are trying and cannot do it”.
My response to the client was “no you can’t include an attachment on a campaign. What you can do however is host the PDF in Mailchimp and add a link to the PDF in the campaign”. Essentially what you need to do is store your file somewhere that is accessible via a URL and then as a link to your campaign to the file (you could always use a button in your campaign which links to the file).
Besides hosting your files with Mailchimp you can always save your file or files to Dropbox, Google Drive or similar and then add a link to the file in your Mailchimp campaign.
Here is a list of file types that you may store in the Mailchimp file manager. Keep in mind that the maximum filesize for each file is 10 MB.
| File Type | Extensions |
|---|---|
| Text files | .txt, .csv, .log, .css, .ics |
| Image files | .jpg, .jpe, .jpeg, .gif, .png, .bmp, .psd, .tif, .tiff, .svg, .indd, .ai, .eps |
| Document files | .doc, .docx, .rtf, .odt, .ott, .pdf, .pub, .pages, .mobi, .epub |
| Audio files | .mp3, .m4a, .m4v, .wma, .ogg, .flac, .wav, .aif, .aifc, .aiff, |
| Video files | .mp4, .mov, .avi, .mkv, .mpeg, .mpg, .wmv |
| Spreadsheet files | .xls, .xlsx, .ods, .numbers |
| Presentation files | .odp, .ppt, .pptx, .pps, .key |
| Archive files | .zip, .tar, .gz, .7z, .vcf |
2018 – can you now?
No. Mailchimp doesn’t allow sending files as attachments with email messages. Services such as Gmail are becoming more strict than ever about not showing messages that are larger than 102kb meaning that email messages with attachments have a smaller chance of being opened and read.
I can link my campaign to a pdf but the pdf loses it’s page display settings. How can I get my linked pdf to hold the page display settings?
@Mary, all that Mailchimp does is upload the PDF file and store it. When the reader of your campaign clicks the PDF link in your campaign they are downloading the PDF from Mailchimp. It is therefore very unlikely that the PDF display issues are related to Mailchimp. What software are you using to initially save the PDF?
I no longer want the link to be active. How do I delete it from MailChimp storage? I deleted the campaign but the link in the sent email is still active.
Kris, merely delete the file from the Mailchimp content manager.
Hi Gary,
From what I understand, deleting the file from the Mailchimp content manager doesn’t remove the content from the “cloud”.
i.e. Recipients of a campaign can still click the link and access a Mailchimp link to a PDF sent in a previous campaign even though that PDF file was deleted in the Mailchimp content manager.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Chris, you are correct.
Gary, I am not sure that this works. Clicking the trash can on the The page on thcontent studio page gives the following warning “Are you sure you want to delete this file? This will not affect draft or sent campaigns, or active automations that include or link to this file.”
Sorry Gary I did not read the thread from Chris. Question now is – can the attachment be accessed in any way, either to delete it or to update it? Thanks
Harry, as far as I’m aware the file can’t then be deleted or amended.
Thanks Chris. This seems bizarre. There must be plenty of examples where a link is posted but then needs to be updated or changed for other reasons. Anyone out there who has a paidfor Mailchimp account and can ask them?
Hi Harry, I’ve posted an alternate method that will allow for updating/deleting files included as ‘attachments’ https://wp.me/pxhFk-6YT
Hi Gary, I couldn’t find what I’m looking for related to mailchimp here, but you are an expert, so there you go. Yesterday working on new campaigns with new contacts, I deleted permanently my contacts instead of archiving them, and now I can’t add them anymore, and I do really need to send my campaigns. Please, could you help me, please? I can’t find anywhere an answer.
Many thanks in advance.
Regards,
Cintia
Hi Cintia,
The simplest thing to do will be to create a new Audience as then you’ll be able to re-add the deleted contacts.
Hi, Gary,
I was able to do this in my auotmated first email, but I wanted to send the same PDF to my existing list, and I only seem to have the option to link to a URL, email or phone number. I have the free version of MailChimp. Is there a way to do this in an email to my existing list?
Thank you!
Sheri
Hi Sheri,
If you click on your PDF file in the Content Studio you’ll be able to copy the URL of the file. You can then add this URL to your campaign 🙂
HI, I have created a file in the content studio – how do I turn it inot a campaign???
Hi Sarah, an email campaign is HTML – there is no means of turning a file into an email (unless it’s HTML). This tutorial should help https://youtu.be/NEnUFoLI5DQ
mailchimp will not accept pdf files with the free option
When did the free version “lose” the pdf upload capability? I was uploading PDFs and user were downloading “tips” I was providing free to subscribers.