How to Save Emails to Google Drive Automatically [Tutorial]

Saving your emails to Google Drive is an effective solution for better organization, but also for enhanced security, as it’s not rare to see emails and attachments get lost by accident. 

Simply put, there are two ways to backup emails to Google Drive: Manually, or automatically.

The first one is not very convenient, as you have to save one email at a time and spend a couple of minutes every time you want to do it. Plus, this is an option available in some email clients (such as Gmail and Microsoft email), but not all of them.

Automation, on the other hand, provides the most efficient pathway, as it allows you to save your emails (all of them, or the ones you decide) to Google Drive without lifting a finger. In addition, the automated option works for all email clients.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to integrate your email client and Google Drive to automatically save emails to a Google Drive folder as individual Google Doc files. 

Ready to build? Get your Make account, and let’s get started! 

1. Create a new Make scenario and add the email app

Start by clicking the Create a new scenario button in your Make dashboard.

Doing this will take you to the visual canvas of Make, where we’ll build the automation. 

Click the button at the center of the screen, search for the Email app, and select the Watch Emails module.

Now it’s time to configure this module. 

Start by clicking Add and connect your email client to Make (we’re using Gmail, but any email client will do here). 

Next, choose the Folder that you want to monitor for new emails, and select the Criteria - in our case, we’ll be watching All emails, read and unread. 

Finally, scroll down to the bottom of the configuration box and state the Maximum number of results that need to be fetched each time the automation runs. 

For reference, if you receive ~10 emails every day, this number should be 10 (or above). If you receive 50, then it should be 50 (or above). 

Once ready, click OK to finish configuring the module, and move on to the next step.

2. Choose when to start monitoring emails

After the configuration box of the first module closes, a new one will pop up on your screen. 

This secondary box will let you define the moment when Make should start picking up your emails and saving them to Google Drive. 

You can choose to start right away or after a specific date in the past or future.

The simplest option is to select the From now on option but feel free to choose the one that suits your actual needs.

Once ready, click OK and move on to the next step.

3. Add the Google Drive app

Hover your cursor over the Email module and a little “+” symbol will appear: Click it to add another module. 

Then, search for the Google Drive app, and select the Create a File from Text module. 

Start configuring this module by clicking Add and connecting your Google account to Make. 

Then, choose the Google Drive that you’ll be using to store your emails, and the Folder where the emails will be stored. 

Under File Name, map the data operators that will be used to name the email files. In this example, we’re using Subject and Sender name, as they will allow us to easily identify emails when we need them. 

Then, under File Content, map the Text content data operator. This is how Make will fetch text inside emails into the corresponding files. 

Finally, select Yes for the Convert the File to Google Docs document option.

Check the image below for reference:

Once ready, click OK and move on to the final step of this tutorial.

4. Schedule and test the scenario

Since we chose the From now on option in the second step of this tutorial, we’ll now test it.

First of all, head over to the bottom left corner of your screen, and turn the scenario on. 

Then, compose a test email, and send it to yourself.

Wait for a few seconds until the test email hits your inbox. Then, head back to your scenario, and click the Run once button. 

In a matter of seconds, Make will automatically generate a Google Doc with the email you just sent to yourself. 

Head over to the Google Drive folder that you chose for storing the emails, and check if the newly created document is there.

To conclude, go to the visual canvas once again to schedule the scenario. 

Click the Clock that’s next to the first module of the scenario, and choose when, and how often the scenario should run. 

We selected once a day at 23:59, so it picks up all the emails from the day and creates a file for each one of them in our Google Drive folder. 

Finally, turn the scenario on, and save it. 

From now on, all your emails will be saved in that folder for your convenience and security.

What if you want to save attachments as well? 

In case you want to save attachments, we already have a pre-built template that you can use for that.

This template operates on the same principle as the solution we built above, and it will take you even less time to configure it!

Final words: Backing up your emails is easy with Make

Migrating emails to Google Drive is more than an organizational feat; it's a strategic move to safeguard your informational capital. 

In order to stop worrying about backing up emails or converting emails into files, get your Make account today, and let this tutorial be your guide to a more efficient, organized way of managing your data.