Automatically save email attachments! Reduce routine work with "Microsoft Power Automate"

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You receive an email saying "Please refer to the attached file for details." Do you manually download email attachments each time and save them in a specific folder?

　It's not a big operation, but if you receive 10 emails with attachments a day, you're doing it over 200 times a month. It's just saving the file. If you receive a lot of emails, you may forget to save them.

If you want to be freed from such annoyance, try using "Microsoft Power Automate" provided by Microsoft.

"Microsoft Power Automate" is one of the RPA tools. RPA is an acronym for "Robotic Process Automation" and means a mechanism or concept for automating work using a personal computer. RPA tools are suitable for automating simple operations that are repeated many times, such as "saving an email attachment".

Attached files can be saved to Dropbox and Google Drive in addition to OneDrive. Since it is automatically saved to the cloud drive, there is also the advantage that you can quickly check it from your smartphone when you go out.

Can be used with your usual Microsoft account

"Microsoft Power Automate" can only be used with the Microsoft account you always use. No need to install a separate app. You need to give "Microsoft Power Automate" access to the cloud drive you use, but it's a Microsoft service, so you don't have to be nervous.

Here, we will introduce the procedure for saving the attached file of the email received to the "Outlook" email to your OneDrive.

Sign in to Microsoft Power Automate. Click [Home] → [Organize email attachments], and then click [Save Outlook.com email attachments to OneDrive]. If it is not displayed in the list, search for "Outlook.com" from the search window at the top of the screen Sign in to Outlook.com and OneDrive. After signing in, click [Create Flow] When you sign in to Outlook.com and OneDrive, you will be asked "Do you want to allow this app to access your information?", so click [Yes]. [Save Outlook.com email attachments to OneDrive] flow (process) is added. Click [Edit] at the top right of the screen

　With the above operation, a process named [Save Outlook.com email attachments to OneDrive] will be added. In "Microsoft Power Automate", a group of processes to be automated is called a "flow", and added/created flows can be checked from [My Flow] in the menu on the left side of the screen.

When adding a flow, a screen with detailed information will be displayed. Change the settings so that attachments can be saved in any folder in OneDrive. However, only existing folders can be selected when specifying a folder. Since you cannot create a new folder from the "Microsoft Power Automate" screen, create a folder on OneDrive in advance.

The screen immediately after clicking [Edit] on the screen displaying the detailed information of the flow. There are [On new email] and [Apply to each Attachment on the email] items. "When a new email is received" and "Apply to email attachments" are the same process as the flow names. Click [On new email] [Inbox] is displayed in [Folders]. What "all mail" means in the mail app. You can also specify a specific folder by clicking the folder icon on the right. Here, proceed as is [Apply to each Attachment on the email] and click [Create file] below it. Click the folder icon to the right of [Folder path] and specify the folder to save to. You don't need to change any other items that have the Email Attachments folder selected here. After clicking "Save" to save the changes, "The flow is ready to start. We recommend you test it." is displayed at the top of the screen. Select "Manual" and click "Test". If the test completes successfully, the "On new email" and "Apply to each Attachment on the email" items will be marked with a green check. Setting completed

　After changing the settings, try sending yourself an email that includes an attached file. The attachment should be saved in the specified folder on OneDrive. It may take some time, so please be patient.

Let's check the operation by sending an email containing an attached file to yourself.The attached file is saved in the folder on OneDrive that you specified earlier

. Not possible with a personal Microsoft account. It is possible to specify the "sender" and "importance" as a single process, but it is better to specify the sorting rules in the mail application and specify the folder.

The state where [Specify advanced options] item in [On new email] is open. Rather than narrowing down on this screen, it is better to set the sorting rules of the mail application and specify the folder

Gmail attachments can also be saved

[Home] of "Microsoft Power Automate" On the screen, frequently used flows are lined up. There is also a flow of saving Gmail attachments to Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox. The basic flow of setting changes is the same. Sign in to each service and specify the destination folder. Try setting according to your usage environment.

Buy from Amazon, which also has a flow to save Gmail attachments to Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox: