The service is ideal to get a quick overview of a file's reputation. Results are not 100% trustworthy especially if some engines report hits while others don't; the
likelihood of false positives is higher on Virustotal than with
any one antivirus engine that you check files against. Virustotal maintains an email scanning service next to the Web version and the APIs that it provides. You send emails with a file attachment to the service and get a report soon thereafter as a reply. Email scanning is quite handy at times, e.g. when you are on a mobile and want a file scanned, cannot access the VirusTotal website, or want multiple files scanned in a short period of time.
The system has several limitations, however:
- Email attachments have a size limited that depends on the email provider but it is usually 25 Megabytes.
- Some providers, e.g. Gmail, prevent the sending of executable files types. Gmail blocks these even when you zip them.
- Results are limited when compared to the wealth of tools that Virustotal provides, e.g. relations, online calls, and operational details.