Expanding Distribution List Increases Message Size?

[IT_Geek]

Good Morning-

Does anyone know if expanding a very large distribution list will cause a
message size to dramatically increase? One of my users did not have
permission to use a distribution list in our GAL and so she expanded the list
and sent the message out. The recipients received either a 4mb message or
9mb. There are no graphics in the message, just a few short text lines.

Thanks

 

[F.H. Muffman]

Does anyone know if expanding a very large distribution list will cause a
message size to dramatically increase? One of my users did not have
permission to use a distribution list in our GAL and so she expanded the
list
and sent the message out. The recipients received either a 4mb message or
9mb. There are no graphics in the message, just a few short text lines.

Yes, it will increase the size of the message. I'm a little surprised it's
that large, but, not entirely surprised. Based on the fact that the message
size is either 4mb or 9mb, I'm guessing there are multiple servers involved?
The 4mb users are on the same server as the sender, and the 9mb's aren't?

How many users are on the DL? 'Very Large' can mean different things to
different people. I've talked to people who had a 'Very Large' database
that was all of 500 MB (that's after talking to people who had 10GB
databases).

 

[IT_Geek]

I'm not sure of the exact size but there's at least 1000 people on the list.
I've noticed that when the group isn't expanded, the messages aren't very
large. When I open the message, the To: & CC: fields are blank and the pc
freezes for a couple of minutes. Then the names will populate in the To:
field.

Yes, multiple servers.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[F.H. Muffman]

I'm not sure of the exact size but there's at least 1000 people on the
list.
I've noticed that when the group isn't expanded, the messages aren't very
large. When I open the message, the To: & CC: fields are blank and the pc
freezes for a couple of minutes. Then the names will populate in the To:
field.

Yes, multiple servers.

Well, on the one hand, I wouldn't worry because that doesn't actually sound
broken. There's a lot of routing information that would have ended up in
the envelope of the message.
On the other hand, the fact that one of your users who felt that they should
mail a gigantic DL that they didn't have permission to send to, so they just
expanded it and sent it anyways... that, that might indicate something
broken. =) You may want to consider implementing a restriction on the
number of recipients per message: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821881