The Gmail app for Android is quite simply awesome, especially if you are on FroYo and above. However, it does have one major limitation. Possibly due to security concerns, Google doesn’t allow you to save Gmail attachments. You can preview attachments you receive in your mail; however, there is no way to save them. Unsurprisingly, however, there are quite a few third party apps that can help you squirt around this restriction.
The Android app that I use to save my Gmail attachments is Save my Attach. It’s a tiny app that requires zero-configuration, and works beautifully. After you have installed this app, just tap the preview button as usual. A dialogue box will pop up asking you to choose an app to preview the file with. Select Save my Attach from the list, and you will be able to download the attachment.
Select “Save my Attach” from the Preview Options List
Save File to Desired Location
Another similar app is GSaver. The benefit of GSaver is that it allows you to easily browse your entire file system (even system folders, if you have a rooted system), and save the file at any desired location. Save my Attach lacks a browse option, and the user has to key in the download path. However, GSaver is ad-supported, with a premium ad-free version also being available.
Download All Files is the final option that I would recommend. It’s the most feature-packed app of the lot. Yes, it can download Gmail attachments, but it can also bypass the download restrictions present in the default Android browser. Download All Files can download APK, RAR, ZIP, EXE, MP3, DOC (Word), XLS (Excel) and other files that you weren’t previously allowed to download from the web browser. It also works with the default Android email app and Touchdown. Download All Files is an ad-supported app.
Thanks Man. I am looking always for gmail attachments in android. This article is excellent.
Thanks for the info, I didn’t know you could do that. But with all the hype about Google Data mining our emails I think I am going to just make it a spam account and never look at it again. Its too bad they are really messing with with it this much.
Very useful information for gmail, thanks.
Brilliant, this was driving me nuts and I had resorted to using the Basic HTML version on the browser to save downloads
thanks for sharing. good tutorial and useful one.
I went to http://www.gmail.com in the droid browser and it opened mail.google.com and I didn’t see anywhere to add an attachment.. Am I doing something wrong?
Don’t use the browser, use the gmail app.
“GSaver” is a nice feature.Can you kindly let me know how many gmail account i can attache ?
Handy bit of information.
This is one thing I love about the droid – if it lacks some functionality, you will always find an app to implement it.
Yes, that’s the thing which makes android more powerful and lovable phone for most of the people including me.
thanks for the info I have just got my android and it is harder to figure out than I thought. I think I will actually have to read the manual a bit.
fantastic info thanks I was wondering how you can do this thanks
Very useful information for gmail, thanks.
Improvement is a important part of android, so features are introduced
Clear and quite impressive features. I shared within my network. Thanks for posting
Really, Android is improving with useful features that’s a nice thing about it.
ok but how do i view it now? I preview it and saved it and also downloaded it. It says it’s put it in my download folder, but i can’t find it.
I wasn’t even sure it was possible to save attachments. Thanks for the info.
- Robert
GSaver is good android app for save attached files. I will download it in my android phone.
This is totally what i needed! Just ran into this problem on my transformer prime, kinda frustrating. Gonna download Gsaver now. Thanks.
These three are really excellent solution for saving Gmail attachments in Android. I would like go with the final recommentded one ‘Download All Files’. This is really great and enable to quickly download all attached files at one time using its new download all option and offering the best image preview convenience in standard format without downloading. Thanks for helpful share.