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You are here: Home / Marketing / How to send an attachment in Mailchimp

How to send an attachment in Mailchimp

You need your subscribers to receive a file with your Mailchimp campaign. You can’t find where to add an attachment to the email campaign. Read below or watch the video to find out how to get the file to your contacts.

Can I send a file attachment in Mailchimp?

No, you can’t send a file as an attachment, in the traditional sense, in Mailchimp. You can however send a link to recipients where they may download the file at their convenience. First off, let’s understand the issue with attachments.

When we include a file attachment in an email message we increase the size of the message. For example, if we add a PDF attachment of 2 MB in size in Outlook or Gmail and send that campaign, we are forcing the recipient to download the attachment whether they want to view the attachment or not. Files sent as attachments force the recipient to use their data to download the file, data to store the file and often slow the network of the recipient. When sending an attachment, the recipient usually has no control over the attachment downloading immediately.

When sending a file as an email attachment to a few people this may not be a major concern however imagine that you send an email marketing campaign to 100,000 subscribers. Suddenly we are forcing the large download onto a significant number of people. If we’re a government department we can expect an open rate of about 27%. That means that about 27,000 of our 100,000 contacts will open our message. We’re therefore inconveniencing 73,000 recipients (by forcing the download) of our campaign that aren’t going to even look at our message at all.

Instructions to add an attachment to a Mailchimp campaign

There is a push by email companies to decrease the size of email messages that recipients are committed to download (e.g. Gmail clipping messages more than 102KB). Senders such as Mailchimp have a great solution to enable making the ‘attachment’ files easily available to recipients whilst not forcing the download of the file as happens when attaching a file to an email message. Here is how to include your PDF, CSV, DOC. TXT or almost any other file-type as a downloadable file to your Mailchimp email campaign:

  1. In the Content section of the Campaign Builder, click Edit Design.
  2. On the Design step, click an existing text content box or drag and drop a new one into your layout.
  3. Create the text you want to link and highlight it.
  4. Click the Link icon.
  5. Click the Web Address drop-down menu, and choose File.
  6. Click Upload to choose a file from your computer.
  7. Choose your file, and click Open to upload it to the Content Manager.
  8. The URL of your uploaded file will be automatically added to the Insert or Edit Link pop-up modal.
  9. Click Insert.

When your recipient receives your campaign, they’ll now be able to click the text you highlighted in the instructions above to download and view your ‘attachment’.

Note: I’ve published an alternate method of adding an ‘attachment’ where you’ll be able to delete or edit the file.

Found this useful? Please share:

Related

  • How to send an attachment in Mailchimp
  • Add an Editable Attachment to a Mailchimp Email Campaign
  • Learn to Add a PDF Attachment in the New Mailchimp Email Builder

Filed Under: Marketing

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. jlistermartin says

    October 18, 2018 at 11:29 am

    Thanks, that was very helpful

    Reply
  2. Chris says

    October 18, 2018 at 5:11 pm

    Very helpful!

    Reply
  3. Chuck says

    October 31, 2018 at 6:16 am

    I was sending private “subscribers-only” attachments for my magazine, and realized that Google was sniffing the gmail messages and indexing my private issues in Google Search Results. The only way around this problem is to attach the actual PDF for subscribers, but this isn’t possible with MailChimp..

    Reply
  4. Brian Francis Reeve-Hayes says

    November 7, 2018 at 5:33 pm

    When I file these instructions, it only gives me the option to upload a photo! There is no ability to upload a file! Had this procedure changed?

    Reply
    • Gary says

      November 10, 2018 at 2:28 pm

      Hi Brian, the process hasn’t changed; you should be able to select any of the common filetypes e.g. PDF, TXT etc.

      Reply
  5. Carol Smith says

    December 1, 2018 at 3:58 am

    Worked perfectly…but when I viewed my test email the pdf file was presented in landscape not portrait so part of the info was cut off. How do I fix this?

    Reply
    • Gary says

      December 1, 2018 at 3:50 pm

      Hi Carol, I came across a similar issue recently with someone who had saved a PDF from Microsoft Publisher. She saved the file as a PDF using a different means than she first had and all was ok.

      Reply
  6. Ali says

    December 8, 2018 at 1:28 pm

    Can I change the linked file? We made some modifications and now want the email that’s already been sent to link to the updated file.

    Reply
    • Gary says

      December 8, 2018 at 4:21 pm

      No. Once the campaign has been sent it is not possible to amend the URL nor the file.

      Reply
  7. Alliance Baptist Church says

    January 31, 2019 at 10:03 am

    My subscribers can see the file if they open from computer but not on a phone. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong? Thanks

    Reply
    • Gary says

      February 1, 2019 at 9:19 am

      Try saving your file with a different program/application.

      Reply
  8. Jack Ross says

    February 14, 2019 at 2:54 am

    It was very helpful, Thank you, Jack (A novice at Mailchimp and e-marketing. There was always someone else to do that

    Reply
  9. Reginaldo Nepomuceno says

    March 14, 2019 at 10:00 am

    Hi Gary! Do you think it’s possible to send personalised attachments, like certificates or documents to a list? Have you ever seen a challenge like this?

    Reply
    • Gary says

      March 17, 2019 at 8:56 am

      The way to achieve this is to include the URL for each contacts certificate in your list. Then use the merge tag (for the filed in your list that contains the URLs) as the link.

      Reply
  10. Marsha Kamish says

    April 17, 2019 at 11:00 am

    I use pages and convert to pdf. Could this be why I can’t upload the pdf? I converted to Word and then to pdf but it was all out of alignment. Any suggestions?

    Reply
    • Gary says

      April 17, 2019 at 11:33 am

      Hi Marsha, a tool such as https://cloudconvert.com/pages-to-pdf may work

      Reply
      • Gary says

        April 17, 2019 at 11:43 am

        Marsha, I looked more into this and it seems that there are a number of issues with Pages and PDF (e.g. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8594352 : “It is not out of the realm of possibilities that Apple has yet again, modified the PDFKit and Print Operation frameworks for Mojave, and may have introduced collateral PDF imaging issues”). Perhaps try using Google Docs as the export as PDF from Google Docs works really well.

        Reply
  11. Marsha Kamish says

    April 17, 2019 at 11:36 am

    That would have been cool but I would have to pay for it. I’m too cheap for that when it should work as it is. Thanks, though!

    Reply
    • Gary says

      April 17, 2019 at 11:39 am

      Cloudconvert is free https://cloudconvert.com/pricing

      Reply
  12. Marsha Kamish says

    April 17, 2019 at 11:53 am

    I must have misunderstood the message I was getting. I decided to just link to a url and it’s working great. Thanks for your help!

    Reply
  13. Marsha Kamish says

    April 17, 2019 at 11:54 am

    Another good idea! Thanks. Trust Apple to fix what ain’t broke!

    Reply
  14. Olga says

    June 12, 2019 at 6:48 pm

    Thanks Gary, but when I try to upload a PDF file, it comes up as “undefined” and cannot be inserted. The file size is 10,500 KB.
    Please advise, many thanks.

    Reply
    • Gary says

      June 13, 2019 at 10:30 am

      Hi Olga, please try reducing the size of the PDF file to see if that is the issue.

      Reply
  15. Carolyn Barnett says

    June 20, 2019 at 1:47 am

    Thank you. I could not use my Pages>PDF today so used Google Docs >PDF and that worked great…thank you. Yes, must be something new with Apple’s latest Mohave update….I’ll let them know.

    Reply
  16. Kim says

    July 24, 2019 at 7:52 am

    Thank you! Much appreciated.

    Reply
  17. Karen says

    August 16, 2019 at 9:11 pm

    Thanks so much!

    Reply
    • Gary says

      August 16, 2019 at 9:19 pm

      No problem Karen.

      Reply
  18. Caitlin says

    August 20, 2019 at 4:09 am

    Do you need to have a paid plan with MailChimp to upload files other than images? Mailchimp gives me an error that a pdf is not a file type that is accepted.

    Reply
    • Gary says

      August 20, 2019 at 12:46 pm

      Hi Caitlin, no you don’t need a paid plan to upload PDF files. When saving a file as PDF there are certain software that don’t save PDF files ‘properly’. Perhaps try to save your file in PDF filetype using different software.

      Reply
  19. Becca Gladden says

    August 28, 2019 at 8:44 am

    Greatest tip ever! Thank you!

    Reply
  20. J K says

    November 5, 2019 at 12:11 am

    Hi there!
    My problem is that I do this step perfectly, but it doesn’t automatically download.
    It actually opens it in a new tab.
    I am sending this out to those who might not be able to figure this out and are used to the file being attached.
    Is there a way to force an automatic download when you click the link?
    I do have an external URL for this file as well, but it does the same thing.
    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Gary says

      November 11, 2019 at 12:35 pm

      J K, the setting to open another window/tab will be a setting on your device or email reader. This is not something that can be managed through Mailchimp.

      Reply
  21. Julia Fry says

    January 21, 2020 at 7:11 am

    Thank you so much! Very clear instructions. Just what I needed when I was about to pull my hair out!

    Reply
    • Gary says

      January 21, 2020 at 10:36 am

      Glad it helped Julia 🙂

      Reply
  22. Diana Crawford says

    February 11, 2020 at 11:36 pm

    What is the maximum file size please?

    Reply
    • Gary says

      February 12, 2020 at 7:59 am

      10MB 🙂

      Reply
  23. Sheri E. Barnes says

    May 1, 2020 at 10:53 pm

    Super helpful! Thank you!

    Reply
  24. Joseph Shin says

    May 7, 2020 at 12:13 am

    Very helpful
    Thank you

    Reply
  25. Jill says

    May 9, 2020 at 2:04 am

    That was SO helpful and straight forward. Thankyou

    Reply
    • Gary says

      May 10, 2020 at 12:42 pm

      Glad it helped Jill 🙂

      Reply
  26. Yefim says

    May 26, 2020 at 1:14 pm

    Hi Gary,

    Is it possible to include URLs for the certificates automatically? I need to send 1000 personalised certificates. Is there a solution within mailchimp?

    Reply
    • Gary says

      May 26, 2020 at 2:39 pm

      Hi Yefim, If you have the URL for each contact in a field in your Audience then you can easily include the URL for each person as a merge tag. You will however need to add the unique certificate URL for each contact into Mailchimp.

      Reply
  27. Yefim says

    May 27, 2020 at 3:21 am

    Adding the unique certificate URL into a spreadsheet file can be done only manually for each contact. Is it correct? Is there a way to simplify this process for 1000-2000 contacts?

    Reply
    • Gary says

      May 27, 2020 at 8:02 am

      @Yefim, take a look at Zapier.com as they will assist in integrating external systems into Mailchimp.

      Reply
  28. paul murphy says

    June 12, 2020 at 9:36 pm

    Hi …..Cant find the content section or the edit design tab ? Any thouights?

    Reply
    • Gary says

      June 13, 2020 at 10:55 am

      Check your permissions as this is usually the cause.

      Reply
  29. Katt says

    June 17, 2020 at 5:33 pm

    Hi there! I’ve got multiple PDF files created by multiple methods (Word 2016 – saved as PDF, Excel – saved as PDF, Word Printed TO a PDF, Publisher saved/printed to PDF) and NONE will upload into the content manager of Mailchimp – all return to say the PDF is unsupported. Can you explain in more detail the PDF formatting requirements which work/don’t work? My files are ALL below 1MB, most 400k, some are simply text, no tables, no graphics.. others with graphics/images… but still none will upload. I wish MailChimp would expand their Attachment Instructions Help Page to clearly define the parameters if they’re being so highly restrictive! Or Gary… maybe you can be the master Guru for us all? PLEASE HELP!!
    I will attempt to upload to Google Docs, then Save as PDF, or print to PDF to see if that works.. but why not the MS Office, Save command? Something so basic?

    Reply
    • Gary says

      June 18, 2020 at 9:37 am

      Hi Katt, from what you describe all should be ok. How are you uploading to Mailchimp i.e. are you dragging and dropping into the content manager or are you using the “upload” button? Also is this just with one browser or all browsers (Firefox, Chrome …)?
      I did a few tests (saved from Photoshop to PDF in using various PDF setting, from Word to PDF, Google Docs to PDf etc. and don’t have any issues with uploading to Mailchimp. Weird!

      Reply
  30. kaveman95 says

    October 23, 2020 at 1:08 am

    My pdf when opened from my computer shows working hyperlinks in the file. But the file subscribers receive after clicking the link in the email doesn’t show any links in the body of the pdf.

    Any help?

    Reply
    • Gary says

      October 23, 2020 at 12:57 pm

      Saving as PDF seems to be a very ‘hit and miss’ affair. Perhaps try saving as a PDF file from a different application and see if that helps.

      Reply

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