Gmail2GDrive

Gmail2GDrive is a Google Apps Script which automatically stores and sorts Gmail attachments into Google Drive folders, and can also save the thread as a PDF file.

It does so by defining a list of rules which consist of Gmail search filters and Google Drive destination folders. This way the attachments of periodic emails can be automatically organized in folders without the need to install and run anything on the client.

Features

• Automatically sorts your attachments in the background
• Filter for relevant emails
• Specify the destination folder
• Rename attachments (using date format strings and email subject as filenames)
• Save the thread as a PDF File

Limitations

Gmail2GDrive currently has the following limitations:

• Processing is done on a per-thread basis with a single email message per thread. This is so because marking already processed emails is done using labels and GMail only allows to attach labels to a whole thread not to single email messages. For typical usage scenarios this is not really a problem but it may be if you want to process emails that are grouped by GMail into a thread (e.g. forum messages).

Setup

1. Open Google Apps Script Dashboard.
2. Create an empty project.
3. Give the project a name (e.g. MyGmail2GDrive)
4. Replace the content of the created file Code.gs with the provided Code.gs and save the changes.
5. Create a new script file with the name Config and replace its content with the provided Config.gs and save the changes.
6. Adjust the configuration to your needs. It is recommended to restrict the timeframe using 'newerThan' to prevent running into API quotas by Google.
7. Test the script by manually executing the function Gmail2GDrive.
8. Create a time based trigger which periodically executes Gmail2GDrive (e.g. once per day) to automatically organize your Gmail attachments within Google Drive.

Global Configuration

• globalFilter: Global filter expression (see https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7190?hl=en for available search operators)
  • Example: "globalFilter": "has:attachment -in:trash -in:drafts -in:spam"
• processedLabel: The GMail label to mark processed threads (will be created, if not existing)
  • Example: "processedLabel": "to-gdrive/processed"
• sleepTime: Sleep time in milliseconds between processed messages
  • Example: "sleepTime": 100
• maxRuntime: Maximum script runtime in seconds (Google Scripts will be killed after 5 minutes)
  • Example: "maxRuntime": 280
• newerThan: Only process message newer than (leave empty for no restriction; use d, m and y for day, month and year)
  • Example: "newerThan": "1m"
• timezone: Timezone for date/time operations
  • Example: "timezone": "GMT"
• rules: List of rules to be processed
  • Example: "rules": [ {..rule1..}, {..rule2..}, ... ]

Rule Configuration

A rule supports the following parameters documentation:

• filter (String, mandatory): a typical gmail search expression (see http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=7190)
• folder (String, mandatory): a path to an existing Google Drive folder (will be created, if not existing)
• parentFolderId (String, mandatory if using Google Shared/Lamda folders): folder ID of the shared Google Drive folder (will fail, if not existing)
• archive (boolean, optional): Should the gmail thread be archived after processing? (default: false)
• filenameFrom (String, optional): The attachment filename that should be renamed when stored in Google Drive
• filenameFromRegexp (String, optional): A regular expression to specify only relevant attachments
• filenameTo (String, optional): The pattern for the new filename of the attachment. If 'filenameFrom' is not given then this will be the new filename for all attachments.
  • You can use %s to insert the email subject,
  • %o for the original attachment filename and date format patterns like yyyy for year, MM for month and dd for day as pattern in the filename.
  • %d to insert a running counter for matches of that rule as pattern in the filename.
  • See https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/utilities/utilities#formatDate(Date,String,String) for more information on the possible date format strings.
• newerThan (String, optional): Only process message newer than (leave empty for no restriction; use d, m and y for day, month and year)
  • Example: "newerThan": "3m"
• saveThreadPDF (boolean, optional): Should the thread be saved as a PDF? (default: false)
• saveMessagePDF (boolean, optional): Should save single email as a PDF? (default: false)
• skipPDFHeader (boolean, optional): Should skip Email Header when saving email as a PDF? (default: false)

Special Note on Google Shared/Lambda Drives

Obtain the "parentFolderId" by opening the desired shared drive, and then clicking on parent of that drive. It is the random character string at the end of the URL and should look something like the following: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0AAp0ay_HaKsQIK9DHB The end of the URL is the "parentFolderId", which in this case would be "0AAp0ay_HaKsQIK9DHB". So the var would look like "parentFolderId": "0AAp0ay_HaKsQIK9DHB"

Example Configuration

/**
 * Configuration for Gmail2GDrive
 * See https://github.com/ahochsteger/gmail2gdrive/blob/master/README.md for a config reference
 */
function getGmail2GDriveConfig() {
  return {
    // Global filter
    "globalFilter": "has:attachment -in:trash -in:drafts -in:spam",
    // Gmail label for processed threads (will be created, if not existing):
    "processedLabel": "to-gdrive/processed",
    // Sleep time in milliseconds between processed messages:
    "sleepTime": 100,
    // Maximum script runtime in seconds (google scripts will be killed after 5 minutes):
    "maxRuntime": 280,
    // Only process message newer than (leave empty for no restriction; use d, m and y for day, month and year):
    "newerThan": "1m",
    // Timezone for date/time operations:
    "timezone": "GMT",
    // Processing rules:
    "rules": [
      { // Store all attachments sent to [email protected] to the folder "Scans"
        "filter": "to:[email protected]",
        "folder": "'Scans'-yyyy-MM-dd"
      },
      { // Store all attachments from example1@example.com to the folder "Examples/example1"
        "filter": "from:[email protected]",
        "folder": "'Examples/example1'"
      },
      { // Store all attachments sent to [email protected] to the folder "Scans" with extend received dates
        "filter": "to:[email protected]",
        "folder": "'Scans'-yyyy-MM-dd",
        "newerThan": "3m" // received in the last 3 months (applied for this rule only)
      },
      { // Store all pdf attachments from example2@example.com to the folder "Examples/example2"
        "filter": "from:[email protected]",
        "folder": "'Examples/example2'",
        "filenameFromRegexp": ".*\.pdf$"
      },
      { // Store all attachments from example3a@example.com OR from:[email protected]
        // to the folder "Examples/example3ab" while renaming all attachments to the pattern
        // defined in 'filenameTo' and archive the thread.
        "filter": "(from:[email protected] OR from:[email protected])",
        "folder": "'Examples/example3ab'",
        "filenameTo": "'file-'yyyy-MM-dd-'%s.txt'",
        "archive": true
      },
      {
        // Store threads marked with label "PDF" in the folder "PDF Emails" als PDF document.
        "filter": "label:PDF",
        "saveThreadPDF": true,
        "folder": "PDF Emails"
      },
      { // Store all attachments from example1@example.com to the SHARED Drive folder "Shared Drives/Lambda/Examples/example1"
        "parentFolderId": "FOLDER_ID_FOR_Lambda_FOLDER", // This approach is with the ID of "Lambda"
        "filter": "from:[email protected]",
        "folder": "'Examples/example1'"
      },
      { // Store all attachments from example1@example.com to the SHARED Drive folder "Shared Drives/Lambda/Examples/example1"
        "parentFolderId": "FOLDER_ID_FOR_Examples_FOLDER", // This approach is with the ID of "Examples"
        "filter": "from:[email protected]",
        "folder": "'example1'" // Note: We omited the folder path "Examples" since it's the direct parent
      },
      {
        // Store each INDIVIDUAL email as "PDF" instead of an entire thread, in the folder "PDF Emails"
        "filter": "from:[email protected]",
        "saveMessagePDF": true,
        "skipPDFHeader": true, // Skip Email Header
        "folder": "PDF Emails"
      },
      { // Store all attachments named "file.txt" from [email protected] to the
        // folder "Examples/example4" and rename the attachment to the pattern
        // defined in 'filenameTo' and archive the thread.
        "filter": "from:[email protected]",
        "folder": "'Examples/example4'",
        "filenameFrom": "file.txt",
        "filenameTo": "'file-'yyyy-MM-dd-'%s.txt'"
      },
      { // Store all attachments named "file.txt" from [email protected] to the
        // folder "Examples/example5" and rename the attachment to the pattern
        // defined in 'filenameTo' and archive the thread.
        // In this case file-1.txt, file-2.txt and so on.
        "filter": "has:attachment from:[email protected]",
        "folder": "'Examples/example5'",
        "filenameFrom": "file.txt",
        "filenameTo": "'file-%d.txt'"
      }
    ]
  };
}

Processing overview

The following diagram gives a brief overview about how the processing actually works:

NOTE: processRule(), processThread() and processAttachment() are modelled as separate functions for better visibility which is not visible as separate functions in Code.gs

Feedback and contributions

Feedback and contributions are well appreciated via Github.

In case you run into problems it may be helpful to provide logs as part of bug reports. The logs can be found in the Google Apps Script under "Executions". Take care to not include any sensible data in the public viewable issues which may be part of the script logs.

Thanks

I'd like to thank Amit Agarwal who provided similar functionality in his article Send your Gmail Attachments to Google Drive from which Gmail2GDrive evolved to provide more flexibility. Also thanks to all contributors that extended GMail2GDrive with new functionality.