How to Save Attachments to Google Drive from Gmail

Use Google Drive to organize and share your email attachments

Paper clip on corner of paper
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by Heinz Tschabitscher
An independent writer who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997.
Updated March 15, 2019

If you receive many attachments to the emails you receive in your Gmail account, you might be smart to save them on Google Drive, where you can access them from any device with an internet connection and share them with others easily.

After saving a file to Google Drive from Gmail, you can very simply find and open it from inside Gmail.

This procedure works for Gmail on the web.

How to Save Attachments to Google Drive From Gmail

To save files attached to an email to your Google Drive account right from the message in Gmail:

  1. Open the email with the attachment.

  2. Position the mouse cursor over the attachment you want to save to Google Drive. Two icons appear superimposed on the attachment: one for Download and one for Save to Drive.

  3. Click the Save to Drive icon on the attachment to send it directly to Google Drive. If you have multiple folders already set up on Google Drive, you'll be prompted to choose the correct folder.

    Gmail message open in a browser window.

  4. To save all the files that are attached to an email to Google Drive in one go, click the Save all to Drive icon positioned near the attachments. Note that you cannot move individual files to particular folders if you save them all at once, but you can move the saved documents individually in Google Drive.

How to Open a Saved Gmail Attachment in Drive

To open an attachment you just saved in Google Drive:

  1. In the Gmail email containing the attachment icon, position the mouse cursor over the attachment you saved to Google Drive and want to open.

  2. Click the Organize in Drive icon.

  3. In the fly-open menu that appears, click the link to wherever you had saved the attachment. When you click it, Drive opens in a new window, with the attachment already selected.

    Gmail open in a browser window with the Organize in Drive menu open.

  4. If you have more than one folder set up on Google Drive, you may see Organize in Drive instead. You can opt to move the file to a different Google Drive folder before opening it.