Out of memory when sending large disk attachments

[bytestream]

Laravel Version

10.48.12

PHP Version

8.2.19

Database Driver & Version

No response

Description

Sending a mailable with a large disk attachment results in an out of memory exception. This is because the whole file is loaded into memory at

framework/src/Illuminate/Mail/Mailable.php

Line 494 in 97238d2

$storage->get($attachment['path']),

It should be sent to Symfony mailer as a stream, which is already supported

framework/src/Illuminate/Mail/Message.php

Line 320 in 97238d2

* @param string|resource $data

Steps To Reproduce

/**
 * Get the attachments for the message.
 *
 * @return array<int, \Illuminate\Mail\Mailables\Attachment>
 */
public function attachments(): array
{
    return [
        Attachment::fromStorage('/path/to/large.pdf')
                ->as('large.pdf')
                ->withMime('application/pdf'),
    ];
}

https://laravel.com/docs/11.x/mail#attaching-files-from-disk

[driesvints]

Thanks. Right now this isn't possible. It's also a bit unclear to me what you mean with "large"? How large are we talking about?

[bytestream]

Thanks for getting back to me.

Right now this isn't possible.

It's possible to use streams rather than load the file into memory i.e. $storage->get($attachment['path']), becomes $storage->readStream($attachment['path']),. That ensures Symfony mailer reads the file in chunks rather than all at once.

It's also a bit unclear to me what you mean with "large"? How large are we talking about?

The size of the file doesn't really matter if you alter PHP's memory_limit directive i.e. php -d memory_limit=32M. The simple fact is that $storage->get($attachment['path']) unnecessarily loads the whole file into memory when there are better alternatives available.

[driesvints]

I do believe size matters as I don't think it's reasonable to send too large attachments over mail. I think it's best that if you feel something can be improved here that you attempt to send in a PR. If it can be without BC breaks it can adjust the current functionality otherwise it should be a new method. Thanks.

[bytestream]

@driesvints I agree that one shouldn't be sending large files over mail, but the code should be memory efficient and not enforce such limitations in an ungraceful manner. I sent a PR but it was closed without explanation #51601. Perhaps you can offer some insight given it doesn't break BC, and just improves the efficiency of the current functionality.

[driesvints]

Hey @bytestream. It seems Taylor doesn't want to make that change right now. Since we only received one report for this we're going to leave things be sorry. You could always try to overwrite the buildDiskAttachments method if you want.