How to send large email attachments on iPhone and iPad

You're writing an email and need to attach a file to it, perhaps an office or iWork document, or maybe a PDF or text file. For security reasons, you can't go wandering through the file system, but you can attach any file into any email from any storage provider app, including iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and more.

How to attach iCloud Drive files to email on iPhone and iPad
How to attach Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive or enterprise files to email on iPhone and iPad
How to use the attachment shortcut on iPad

How to attach iCloud Drive files to email on iPhone and iPad

Because Apple's iCloud service is built into iOS, files located in iCloud Drive are simplest to attach.

Launch Mail from your Home screen
Tap Compose to start a new email.
Touch-and-hold to bring up the editing menu on iPhone. (Or use the shortcut key on iPad)
Tap the arrow button to get more options.
Tap Add Attachment.
Tap on the folder that contains the file you want to attach, if it's not at the top level.
Tap on the file you want to attach.

Add a recipient, a message, and you're good to go.

How to attach Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive or enterprise files to email on iPhone and iPad

Thanks to document provider extensions you can also attach files from other popular online storage services, and from an enterprise storage system if you have one.

For the document provider extension to be available, you first have to download the host app from the App Store.

Once you've downloaded the app, launch it and log into your account. Then you can start attaching away.

Launch Mail from your Home screen
Tap Compose to start a new email.
Touch-and-hold to bring up the editing menu on iPhone. (Or use the shortcut key on iPad)
Tap the arrow button to get more options.
Tap Add Attachment.
Tap on Locations at the top left.
Tap on the storage provider you want to use. If you don't see your preferred provider:
1. Tap on More.
2. Switch On your preferred storage provider.
3. Tap on Done.
Tap on the folder that contains the file you want to attach, if it's not at the top level.
Tap on the file you want to attach.
Some providers, like Google Drive, allow for multiple accounts. In those cases:
1. Tap on the account you want to access.
2. Tap on the folder that contains the file you want to attach, if it's not at the top level.
3. Tap on the file you want to attach.

Add a recipient, a message, and you're done.

How to use the attachment shortcut on iPad

The iPad now has shortcut keys to either side of the predictive keyboard. In Mail, one of those keys is for attachments. Instead of having to use the edit menu, as detailed below for iPhone, simply use the attachment button to save yourself some time. Everything else remains the same.