You receive an email with a file attached to it, maybe a spreadsheet or presentation, a PDF or plain text. You don't just want to open it in an app, though. You want to save it somewhere you can remember and get to whenever you need to, and from any of your devices. That's where attachment saving comes in. With it, you can save any attachment you receive to any online storage service you use, including iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive. Then, you can access whenever you want, from wherever you want.

How to save email attachments to iCloud on iPhone and iPad

Saving email attachments to iCloud Drive is easy because iCloud built right into iOS.

  1. Launch Mail from your Home screen.
  2. Tap the email that contains the attachment.
  3. Hard press on the attachment to bring up the Share sheet. If you don't have a device with 3D Touch, then long press on the attachment.
  4. Tap the share sheet button on the bottom left of the page. It's a square with an upward arrow.

  5. Tap on Save to Files.

    Hard press or long press on the email attachment, tap the Share sheet button, tap Save to Files

  6. Tap iCloud Drive to save to iCloud Drive or tap On My iPhone to save it directly to your phone.
  7. Tap a folder.

  8. Tap Add on the top right of your screen.

    Tap iCloud Drive or On My iPhone, tap a folder, tap Add

How to save email attachments to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or enterprise storage on iPhone or iPad

Thanks to document provider extensions, though, you can also save to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and other storage services.

To save attachments to you storage provider, you first have to download the host app from the App Store.

Once you've downloaded the app, launch it and log into your account. Then you can start saving away. How you do it can vary by provider, however.

  1. Launch Mail from your Home screen.
  2. Open the email that contains the attachment.
  3. Long press on the attachment to bring up the Share sheet.

  4. Tap on your storage provider, if they have a custom saving extension. For example, tap Save to Dropbox.

    1. Tap Save to save the file to the top level.

    2. Or, tap Choose a Different Folder to select a a sub-directory for the file, and then tap Save.

  5. Tap Save Attachment if your storage provider doesn't have their own saving extension. For example, Google Docs.

    1. Tap Locations,
    2. Tap on your storage provider, For example, Google Drive.
    3. Choose your account, if prompted.
    4. Tap on the folder you want to save the file into, if it's not at the top level.

    5. Tap Save Here or whatever language your storage provider uses.

Yeah, it's messier. Dropbox is using a custom extension to provide a faster, better experience, while Google Drive and others are simply letting iOS link in.

Either way, once you get used to how your storage provider works, it's relatively simple and fast to do.

Not sure how to add attachments? Find out here!

Questions?

Let us know in the comments below!

Updated October 2017: Updated steps and screenshots for iOS 11.

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