File upload limits

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dm200400600
Community Participant

I can see this question has been asked a lot in the community but it seems many of the replies contain links to documents that seem, to me at least, rather opaque.

In almost every article on the subject it states "Canvas does not support file uploads larger than 5 GB." but I thought the upload limit for a student for a submission point was 500MB? In what scenario would a student be uploading a 4GB document, for example?

Does the limit vary depending on what is being uploaded? For example would a PDF with an embedded video still only have a limit of 500MB?

I'm struggling on how to clearly relate upload sizes of files to students, other than, "a single file cannot exceed 500MB" that I think is the case, although not mentioned here? https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-upload-a-file-as-an-assignment-submission-...

1 Solution
ethan-franks
Instructure
Instructure

Hello @dm200400600

Thank you for reaching out! Yes, you are correct that Canvas has an upload limit of 5 gigabytes for file uploads. The 500 megabytes limit is actually referring to media uploads: videos and audio. 5 gigabytes for file uploads; 500 megabytes for media uploads. This is because video files tend to be larger and can quickly fill upload student submission space in their user files. So to answer your question, yes. The type of file limit is contingent on the type of file. 

Hopefully, that will solve your issue, but let us know if you need anything else. 

Thanks! 

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