Manatee

Slack, Teams and Discord file size limits (2026)

· 6 min read

Slack accepts files up to 1 GB each on every plan, Microsoft Teams routes files through OneDrive and SharePoint where the per-file ceiling is 250 GB, and Discord is the strict one: 10 MB per file for free accounts, 50 MB with Nitro Basic or a Level 2 boosted server, 100 MB in a Level 3 server, and 500 MB with full Nitro. Videos are the files that hit these walls, and the fix is to shrink them to a named size before uploading.

Slack

At the time of writing Slack’s per-file limit is 1 GB, regardless of plan. That is large enough that individual uploads rarely fail; the limits you actually bump into are elsewhere.

  • Storage: the free plan gives a workspace a shared pool of storage, and paid plans allot storage per member. When a workspace is full, uploads fail with a storage message rather than a size message, and someone has to delete old files.
  • Preview behavior: Slack plays MP4 files with H.264 video inline. A MOV from an iPhone, especially one with HEVC inside, may upload fine but show as a download rather than a playable preview, and colleagues on Windows may then be unable to open it at all. Converting to MP4 avoids the follow-up question.
  • Speed: a 900 MB screen recording is within the limit, but it will take a long time to upload and everyone who views it downloads the whole thing. A screen recording shrunk to 50 MB serves the same purpose.

How to shrink a video under Slack’s upload limit on a Mac walks through the Slack case in detail.

Microsoft Teams

Teams does not store files itself. A file shared in a one-to-one or group chat goes to the sender’s OneDrive; a file shared in a channel goes to the team’s SharePoint site. The limit you meet is therefore OneDrive and SharePoint’s limit, which is 250 GB per file.

The practical constraints are different:

  • Storage quota: work and school accounts get OneDrive storage set by the organization; the free version of Teams comes with a modest OneDrive allowance that a few meeting recordings can fill.
  • Upload over the web app: very large files upload more reliably from the desktop app or from a synced OneDrive folder than from the browser.
  • Playback: Teams previews MP4 and MOV inline, but HEVC video may show a blank preview for recipients on Windows without the codec. H.264 MP4 is the safe format for a team that mixes Macs and PCs.

If Teams rejects a file, the message usually names the cause: a blocked file type (executables, scripts and some archives are often blocked by policy), a full quota, or a filename with characters SharePoint does not allow.

Discord

Discord is where people actually get the “file too large” error. Its limits at the time of writing:

  • Free accounts: 10 MB per file.
  • Nitro Basic: 50 MB per file.
  • Nitro: 500 MB per file.
  • Boosted servers: everyone in a server boosted to Level 2 can upload 50 MB, and Level 3 raises that to 100 MB, regardless of their own subscription. The server limit and your personal limit do not add together; you get whichever is higher.

Discord also cares about the format. An MP4 with H.264 video plays inline and in the mobile app; a MOV or an HEVC file may upload and then refuse to play for half the channel. Ten megabytes of H.264 at 720p gives you roughly 30 to 60 seconds of clear video, which covers most clips. How to compress a video for Discord on a Mac has the settings that look best at that size.

Getting a video under the limit

Every one of these limits is a number of megabytes, so the most direct approach is to aim for that number rather than guessing at quality settings and checking the result.

Manatee has a Shrink mode built around this. The steps:

  1. Drag the video onto the Manatee icon in the menu bar, or open the window and drop it in.
  2. Choose Shrink and type the target size in MB. For Discord on a free account, enter 9 to leave a margin; for Slack, the limit is large enough that you are choosing a size for convenience rather than necessity, and 50 to 100 MB is comfortable for a screen recording.
  3. Manatee finds the quality that fits under your number and writes a new MP4 alongside the original. The original is never modified.
  4. Upload the new file.

Things Manatee will not do: it does not trim length, so a forty-minute recording asked to fit in 10 MB will come out unwatchable, and the right move is to cut it down in an editor first. It also cannot change what Discord or Slack allow; it only makes the file fit.

QuickTime Player’s File > Export As offers fixed resolution presets (1080p, 720p, 480p) with no way to aim at a file size, which is fine for Slack and usually too blunt for Discord.

Other files that hit limits

Videos dominate, but not exclusively.

  • Screen recordings on a Mac are saved as high-bitrate MOV files; even a short one can be hundreds of MB. See How to make a screen recording smaller on a Mac.
  • PDFs with scanned pages can exceed 10 MB easily. Manatee’s Shrink mode takes PDFs to a named size as well.
  • Photo batches: an iPhone HEIC is 1.5 to 2 MB, so they fit individually everywhere, but many platforms convert them to a download rather than a preview. JPEG previews reliably.
  • GIFs: a ten-second GIF from a screen recording can exceed Discord’s free limit on its own. A short MP4 is usually a better choice and plays the same way.

Questions

Why does Discord say my 9.8 MB file is too large? Discord measures in binary megabytes on some clients and decimal on others, and a file right at the edge can fall on the wrong side. Aim for 9 MB or less and it goes through.

Does a boosted server raise the limit for everyone or just the booster? Everyone in the server. Level 2 gives every member 50 MB uploads in that server; Level 3 gives 100 MB. Your own Nitro limit still applies in other servers.

Can Slack compress the video for me? No. Slack stores and serves what you upload. Shrink it first if you want it to load quickly for people on the other end.

Is there a way to send the original quality without the limit? Share a link to the file in cloud storage rather than uploading it. All three platforms unfurl links to shared files, and the recipient downloads the full file from there.