Joomla version 3, encountering an error message when uploading some very large files via administrator backend:

Error
This file is too large to upload.

You may try any of the options listed below.

Updating the settings within Apache

(if you have access to the root folder of your server, or on local machine using WampServer or XAMPP). Check this page on finding your php.ini file in your webhosting. For local machines using XAMPP or WAMP (just do a simple file search on the application folder)

  1. Find your php.ini folder
  2. Find and edit the following (changing/increasing the values, for example 10M):
    upload_max_filesize = 10M
    post_max_size = 10M

Updating the settings within Joomla web folder

(if you do not have access to your server but only to your Joomla project folder, for example in your public_html or htdocs / www folders in XAMPP or WampServer respectively)

  1. Find and open to edit your Joomla .htaccess (this is just inside your Joomla website directory, e.g. publid_html/)
  2. Add at the end (put some comment to note this is a custom code added, and a note to include this during upgrades or migrations); increase 10M as needed. Note: depending on webhosting providers (especially on shared environments), this may or may not work as such changes to are restricted and may cause 500 error messages. In this case, check with your webhosts regarding file uploads issue.

    php_value post_max_size 10M
    php_value upload_max_filesize 10M

If none works, contact your webhosting provider, there may be some settings prohibiting these from working.