A facility stores attachments for electronic mail messages so that the messages may be transmitted to the intended recipients without the attachments. The recipients may then review and/or download the attachments by contacting the facility. This facility is especially useful in instances wherein the attachments are large. The facility eliminates the need to store multiple copies of the attachment throughout a system; thus consuming a great deal of memory space. In addition, the facility prevents the recipient from extensive delays that are often associated with downloading email messages that contain large attachments via a dial-up connection with a low transmission rate. The facility may be realized as a server and may be a web server so as to provide access to the attachments via an IP network.