From time to time the need comes up to increase the maximum file upload size for a website. For reference, what I’m referring to is uploading media files (pictures, PDFs, data files, etc.) through an HTML web form.
Typically PHP comes configured to allow a 2 Meg upload size. Some web hosting companies allow you to make these changes directly in the PHP.ini file. In that case you open your PHP.ini file and simply look for “upload_max_filesize”, “post_max_size”, and “memory_limit” and make the appropriate changes.
If no PHP.ini file is available through your hosting platform an alternative method for adjusting this would be to add the following three lines to your .htaccess file.
php_value upload_max_filesize 8M php_value post_max_size 16M php_value memory_limit 24M
Some notes:
- Your control over these values depends on your host’s apache configuration.
- post_max_size must be bigger that upload_max_filesize
- memory_limit must be bigger than post_max_size (if memory limit is enabled)
Keep in mind that extra large files will take longer to upload so you’ll want to make sure that your scripts do not time out when uploading. This will be a trial-and-error process based most likely on your client’s Internet connection speeds.