Gmail is the most popular email provider worldwide, and for good reasons. It offers excellent features and has all the basic functionalities of an email service, particularly file attachment support.
However, while email attachments have been supported by Gmail for a long time now, many still don’t know how to use them. Aside from opening or viewing, there are others who find saving or downloading attachments difficult. Luckily, it can be learned, and this article will demonstrate how to do such things, so please read on.
What Are Email Attachments?
Years before, people could only send and receive plain text emails. However, as technology has moved forward, modern digital documents have also become so popular that people have started transferring them over the Internet. And not long after that, email providers, including Gmail, finally added the ability to send and receive files through emails.
Email attachments are files embedded into emails. The most common email attachments are PDFs, images, videos, audio files, and a few other document formats. Regular users use attachments support to send documents to companies and government agencies, submit projects to schools, or simply send things to a relative, friend, or colleague. On the other hand, people who are in the corporate sector send attachments like memos, agreements, letters, and other documents which can also have digital signatures.
In the past, the only way to embed an attachment was by actually uploading the file to the email provider’s server and making it appear alongside the email subject and body. Moreover, once the email arrives at the destination email address, the recipient will immediately see the attachment and can then choose to view or save it. On the contrary, an individual can now upload a file to a cloud storage service and copy its link. The link can then be posted to the email body, and it will serve as an attachment. Once sent, the receiver will just have to click the link and instantly have access to the file.
While this may seem inconvenient at first, the benefits it provides are actually worth the effort. Since you’re uploading the file to a different server, the email provider can’t block the attachment if it violates specific rules. Aside from that, email services, including Gmail, limit the file size of attachments, meaning you have to send multiple messages to send all files or reduce the size of a document. And by uploading a file to a cloud storage service, you can easily transfer large files without restrictions. The recipient can also access and download on the other end at high speeds.
What Are The Reasons To Save Email Attachments?
Almost everyone has access to a fast or at least capable internet connection nowadays, which is why people wonder if saving email attachments is still necessary. However, in reality, it still is, and the reasons are the following:
Access files during flights and at remote locations
If you frequently fly for business or leisure purposes, then saving email attachments in advance before trips is a must. Many planes don’t offer Wi-Fi, and some do, but they charge high prices, plus the internet connection speeds are poor and spotty. And given that large files require a strong internet connection to load, viewing attachments during flights would not be ideal.
Even if you don’t fly, when you go to a remote location, like when hiking or camping, the internet connection might be poor or totally absent. In this case, you will have to wait until the trip is over to be near a grid again and be able to view an email attachment. Accordingly, before hitting the road, it would be best to select the important or all attachments to be sure and download them.
Have a copy in case of accidental email deletion
Even with extra carefulness, there will always be a chance of deleting an email in the inbox accidentally. Aside from the message itself, one can also no longer have access to a file attached to it. It’s possible to ask the sender to resend the email; however, there’s no assurance that the email is still in that person’s inbox.
An email provider’s server or your account might also get compromised, which means all emails, as well as attachments, will be gone. Regardless, in order to prevent unwanted loss of important files or documents, you should always remember to download email attachments.
Read documents and view files more comfortably
One of the least recognized values of saving email attachments is the ability to view files more comfortably. While most email services today can open the most common file formats, they’re still not good at displaying them. For instance, PDF files won’t appear on full screen and in full resolution, and audio files will just play in the lowest quality to save bandwidth.
If you want to enjoy and view file attachments in their original qualities, the only way to do it is to save them. Once you have downloaded the files, it will then be possible to use certain music players, PDF readers, image viewers, and other apps that will ensure files get displayed correctly.
Can You Save Email Attachments In Gmail?
Yes, it’s possible to save an attachment in Gmail on Mac. In detail, you can visit the official Gmail website and look for emails with important attachments. After that, you can download the files to your Mac’s local storage and have access to them anytime, even without an internet connection available.
If you mainly keep files to a cloud storage service, you can also save an email attachment directly to Google Drive. Since Drive uses the same Google login as Gmail, you can easily send files to your library. By default, an email attachment will appear in the “My Drive” or homepage, but you can choose what folder it will go to while Gmail is saving it.
Saving email attachments directly to Google Photos is also an option in Gmail. However, only images and videos are supported as the service is mainly a place to store such types of files. And unlike saving to Google Drive, you can’t decide what folder in Photos an attachment will show up.
View Email Attachments
Google knows its users send and receive file attachments on a daily basis. Accordingly, it makes it easy for them to view such files on the Gmail website:
1. Open the official Gmail website and wait for the inbox to load.
2. Click to open an email with an attachment.
3. Hover your mouse pointer over anywhere in the file preview.
4. Click the file preview to view the attachment.
Save Email Attachments
On Gmail, it’s effortless to save or download email attachments. You’ll just need to follow these simple steps to try it out:
1. Go to the official Gmail website and wait for the inbox to load.
2. Pick an email with a file attachment and click to open it.
3. Hover your mouse pointer over the file preview.
4. Click the “Download” button to save the file.
5. Wait for a few seconds to let Gmail save the attachment to your Mac.
While saving file attachments to local storage, or especially your Mac’s drive, is the ideal step, it’s not the only option. As such, it’s also possible to save file attachments directly to Google Drive:
1. Visit the Gmail website and wait for the inbox to load.
2. Choose an email with an attachment and open it.
3. Hove your mouse pointer over the file preview.
4. Click the “Add to Drive” icon in the preview.
5. Wait for Gmail to save the file and see if there is a confirmation pop-up below.
If the file attachment is a photo or video, you can save it directly to your Google Photos library:
1. Open Gmail and click to open an email with a file attachment.
2. Hover your mouse pointer over the file preview.
3. Click the “Save to Photos” icon in the file preview.
4. Press the “Save” button in the pop-up.
Final Words
Now that you’ve learned about how to save an email attachment in Gmail Mac, you’re likely ready to download files from emails now. However, if you’re instead looking for a way to improve your Gmail workflow, then you should take a look at Boxysuite.
Boxysuite offers a clean and productive environment for Gmail, Google Calendar, Contacts, and Keep. You can view and save any and as many email attachments as desired with it. Boxysuite is also the first and only native Gmail macOS app, so it will run smoothly and won’t drain your device’s battery. Additionally, it has many helpful and exclusive features, including Desktop Notifications, Reader Mode, Task Managers Integration, and Email Tracking Detection.
Clearly, Boxysuite is the best Gmail app for the Mac. And you can improve your Gmail workflow by trying it for free now!
