You can choose to disable the ability for customers to upload attachments. By default, your customers can send attachments (including images) via the Messenger, email, API, and Facebook.
How do attachments work?
When uploaded, attachments become linked attachments, which is standard treatment for email and message deliverability purposes. By default, linked attachments are not indexed by search engines and are not predictable. However, you should take care not to share linked attachments publicly.
While uploading, attachments are scanned for harmful viruses, and if one is detected, then the file is quarantined and will not be accessible.
Note: Previously all uploads were publicly accessible for 30 days if you had the URL. This had potential to be a security risk, and to address that risk we updated the expected behavior.
The expiry time for end-user uploads is now 24 hours.
For teammates, the URLs that expire can be regenerated by simply reloading the page. For end-users, they can get a new URL by hitting the back button in the Messenger, and then clicking into the conversation again or by reloading the page.
The size limit on individual attachments is 100mb and there is currently no limit on the number of attachments that can be uploaded.
Note: For incoming emails, there is a size limit of 20mb including attachments. Any email larger than 20mb will be rejected.
Note: If using Microsoft and forwarding emails to Intercom, in some cases embedded attachments may not be appearing due to how Microsoft sometimes packages attachments which is called Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF). They will be part of an attachment called Winmail.dat. You can read more about that here.
How do I disable attachments?
If you'd like to disable the ability for customers to upload attachments, just toggle the "enable attachments from leads and users" by going to Security > Attachments and Links:
If you disable attachments, the Messenger will not allow files to be dragged and dropped into the conversation, and will remove the attachments option.
If a customer sends you an email with an attachment, the attachment will not be processed. You'll receive a notification in the conversation that an attachment wasn't processed.
Delete attachments
If you'd like to delete an attachment you've received, just click 'delete' in the attachment's options:
If you would like to export attachments, you can do this individually.
Choose how files are sent in emails
By default, any files you send with emails will be hosted by Intercom and sent as links.
There is no limit to file size. We recommend this option for improved deliverability.
If your customers use firewalls, or cannot access linked attachments for a similar reason, you can choose to send your files inline. 👍
Keep in mind that here is a 20MB size limit for an email, and its attachments.
Under Security > Attachments and Links, select "Files are attached directly to the emails":
Note: Admins might stumble upon an error state in some cases. This is because there’s a limit on the total size of the attachment. There is a 20MB limit, it is the total size of all the files attached. The limit is NOT on a per-file basis.
💡Tip
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