Facebook allows users to upload photos, videos, and other files to share with friends or make public. With over 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook handles an enormous amount of data uploads every day. But what is the largest single file upload that has been successfully posted to Facebook?
The History of File Uploads on Facebook
When Facebook first launched in 2004, it only allowed users to upload small profile photos. Over time, as digital cameras and smartphones with cameras became ubiquitous, Facebook increased the size limits for images to allow higher resolution photos.
In 2006, Facebook launched video uploads, initially capped at 100MB per video. Again, as technology improved and mobile video became commonplace, Facebook responded by increasing the video upload limit to 1GB in 2011 and 4GB in 2015.
Beyond just images and videos, Facebook has continued to expand the types of files users can upload over the years. In 2010, Facebook introduced “docs” to allow users to upload Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Facebook also supports uploading mp3 music files, PDF documents, zipped folders, and more.
The Evolution of Facebook’s Upload Limit
When Facebook first launched, files were limited to just a few megabytes (MB). Over time, the limits have increased exponentially:
- 2004 – Up to 4MB for images
- 2006 – Up to 1GB for videos
- 2008 – Up to 20MB for images
- 2010 – Up to 25MB for images
- 2011 – Up to 1GB for HD videos
- 2015 – Up to 4GB for HD videos
- 2019 – Up to 1TB for Oculus VR videos
As of 2023, here are Facebook’s current file upload limits:
| File Type | Max Size |
|---|---|
| Photo | 4GB |
| Standard video | 4GB |
| HD video | 4GB |
| 360 video | 4GB |
| Oculus VR video | 1TB |
| Document | 100MB |
| MP3 | 40MB |
As you can see, the file size limits are quite generous for photos and standard video. The maximum resolution for a 4GB photo upload is around 80 megapixels. For comparison, most smartphones today have cameras in the 10-20 megapixel range.
What is the Largest File Successfully Uploaded?
In 2015, a photographer named Stuart Lant set the record for the largest Facebook upload. He uploaded a gigantic 360 gigapixel (120,000 x 80,000 pixel) photo of Dubai.
The photo was a whopping 365GB in size! To put this into perspective, that’s over 7,300 times larger than Facebook’s 4GB photo limit.
Lant didn’t upload the full-size photo directly. Instead, he used Facebook’s system for automatically generating multiple cropped sizes for 360 photos. Even so, this is believed to be the largest single photo successfully uploaded to Facebook.
Honorable Mentions
Here are a few other unusually large uploads to Facebook’s servers:
- In 2017, NFL player Cassius Marsh uploaded a 1.5GB video of a single play.
- In 2019, Oculus released a 1.1TB VR video filmed in space via the ISS, the largest video on Facebook.
- In 2020, AI researcher Anthropic uploaded a massive 3.6GB chat log to show off research progress.
Why Does Facebook Limit File Sizes?
There are several reasons why Facebook enforces limits on file upload sizes:
- Large files can negatively impact performance. Uploading and downloading huge files takes time and bandwidth.
- Video files especially consume a lot of resources to encode and stream.
- Users may unintentionally upload files that are too large.
- Prevents abuse from users trying to use Facebook for file storage.
- Allows Facebook to plan storage infrastructure capacity.
Facebook’s limits strike a balance between usability and practicality. The vast majority of users are easily able to upload photos and videos from their phones and digital cameras given today’s size limits.
How Facebook Handles Large Files
If you try to upload a file that exceeds the size limit for that type, Facebook will prevent the upload and display an error advising the limit has been exceeded. You will need to use software on your computer or phone to compress, resize, or split the file into smaller pieces.
Facebook does make some exceptions when the oversized file is of particularly significant public interest. For example, extremely large video files from NASA or sports league partners may be given a special allowance. But in general, normal users are restricted by the published limits.
Tips for Uploading Large Files to Facebook
If you have a large file you want to share on Facebook, here are some tips to make it work:
- Use image editing or video conversion software to reduce resolution or compress the file.
- If resolution is important, split the file into chunks under the limit and upload multiple pieces.
- For panoramic shots, use Facebook’s built-in Photo Sphere converter.
- Upload the file to another hosting site like YouTube or Dropbox and share the link.
- Contact Facebook support and request an exception for newsworthy or special content.
Facebook’s Future File Size Limits
File sizes will continue growing as cameras and sensors improve. A high-end camera today can easily shoot multi-gigabyte photos. We will likely see Facebook increase limits in the future.
On the video side, limits may stay around 4GB for standard video but perhaps increase for 360 and VR content. Documents like PDFs may see a boost as well.
In the more distant future, Facebook will likely need to revamp its systems to support much larger shared files in the 1TB range as AR/VR content matures.
Conclusion
In summary, the largest known file successfully uploaded to Facebook was a staggering 365GB gigapixel panorama photo of Dubai, far above the standard 4GB photo limit. Given practical constraints and user expectations, Facebook limits file uploads to reasonable maximums. However, as technology evolves, we can expect those limits to continue increasing over time.