Email Forwarding
Automatically process documents sent to you via email.
Written By Valentin from Filently
Last updated 26 days ago
What is email forwarding?
Email forwarding lets you forward emails with document attachments to a unique Filently email address. The attachments are automatically extracted, processed, and filed to your Google Drive – just like files you upload manually or add to your inbox folder.
This feature is available on Professional plans and above.
Attachments land in the _ Filently Email Attachments subfolder of your inbox, so you can always tell what arrived by email from what you put there yourself. See Inbox Folder Watching for the full layout of the inbox.
How it works
Enable email forwarding on the Sources page.
Copy your unique email address (it looks like
[email protected]).Forward emails with document attachments to that address.
Attachments are extracted and appear on the Sources page.
Confirm forwarding to start receiving attachments automatically
Gmail asks you to confirm before it forwards mail automatically. When you add your Filently address in Gmail's forwarding settings, Google sends a confirmation email and forwards nothing until you act on it.
That email goes to your Filently address, so it arrives here rather than in your inbox. You'll find it on the Sources page, in the Email Forwarding card. It names the mailbox that asked to forward, next to a Verify in Gmail button. The button opens Google's confirmation page.
Filently never confirms on your behalf. Anyone who has your forwarding address can ask Gmail to forward mail to it. Reading the mailbox shown is how you catch a request you didn't make. Dismiss the reminder if you don't recognize the address.
Forwarding individual emails by hand needs none of this. Confirmation applies only to Gmail's automatic forwarding setting.
Manual vs auto mode
Manual mode
Attachments appear as pending files on the Sources page. You review them and click "Approve Documents" to start processing. This is the same approval flow used for inbox folder watching.
Auto mode
Attachments are processed automatically as soon as the email arrives. No manual approval needed.
You can switch between modes at any time on the Sources page. When you switch from manual to auto, any pending files are automatically processed – no need to approve them individually.
Rejected files
In both modes, files that fail validation (unsupported type, duplicate, or malware detected) appear on the Sources page with a clear rejection reason. This lets you see exactly what was filtered out and why.
Previewing an attachment
Each attachment on the Sources page lists the sender, the subject line of the email it came from, its size, and when it arrived. Alongside approve and dismiss, every row carries a button to open the file:
PDF, photos, and scans (PNG, JPEG, WebP): an eye icon opens the file in a new browser tab.
Everything else, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenDocument, RTF, HEIC, and TIFF: a download icon saves the file. Browsers cannot display these formats.
Rejected attachments carry the same button, so you can check a "Duplicate file" rejection against the file before dismissing it.
Opening or downloading an attachment does not file it and does not use a document credit. Attachments are still scanned for malware at approval, and anything already rejected as malware or expired cannot be opened.
Supported file types
Email forwarding supports file types with full text analysis only (PDF, images, Office documents, and RTF). Other file types attached to forwarded emails are automatically rejected. See Supported File Types and Limits for the full list.
Attachment size limit
The maximum size per forwarded email is 25 MB (including all attachments). This is separate from the per-file size limits that apply to regular uploads – see @Supported File Types and Limits for those.
Attachment expiry
Attachments from forwarded emails are available for download for 28 days after the email is received. If you are in manual mode and do not approve an attachment within this window, it will be marked as expired and cannot be processed.
Expired attachments stay listed so you can see what came in, but they can no longer be opened or downloaded. Opening one shows an expiry notice rather than the document.
In auto mode, attachments are processed immediately, so expiry is not a concern.
Skipped attachments
Forwarded emails often carry more than the document you wanted to file. Signature logos, tracking pixels and other decorative graphics arrive as ordinary attachments, and without filtering they would become documents in your Drive.
Filently skips these automatically. An attachment is skipped when it is:
an image smaller than 25 KB, or
an SVG graphic, at any size.
Images placed inside the message body – a logo in someone's signature, or a picture sitting among the text – reach Filently as attachments too, and they are usually what the size rule catches.
Skipped attachments are never downloaded, never use your document credits, and do not appear on the Sources page. This happens on every forwarded email and there is nothing to configure.
The size rule only ever applies to images. A photographed receipt or a scanned page is far larger than 25 KB, so it comes through normally, and PDFs and Office documents are never skipped no matter how small they are.
If an attachment you expected is missing, contact us. We can check what happened, and if the rules are catching something they should not, we want to know.
Choosing which file types to accept
This setting applies to auto-processing only, and appears on the Sources page once auto-processing is on. In manual mode you review every attachment yourself, so nothing is filtered out before you see it.
Attachments outside your choice are skipped – they never reach the Sources page, so you are not left dismissing things you already ruled out.
The setting only narrows what is accepted, so file types Filently cannot read are still rejected regardless of which option you pick.
Previewing an attachment
Each attachment on the Sources page lists the sender, the subject line of the email it came from, its size, and when it arrived. Alongside approve and dismiss, every row carries a button to open the file:
PDF, photos, and scans (PNG, JPEG, WebP): an eye icon opens the file in a new browser tab.
Everything else, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenDocument, RTF, HEIC, and TIFF: a download icon saves the file. Browsers cannot display these formats.
Rejected attachments carry the same button, so you can check a "Duplicate file" rejection against the file before dismissing it.
Opening or downloading an attachment does not file it and does not use a document credit. Attachments are still scanned for malware at approval, and anything already rejected as malware or expired cannot be opened.
Security
Malware scanning
All email attachments are automatically scanned for malware before they are filed to your Google Drive. If a file is found to be infected, it is rejected and never reaches your Drive. Rejected files appear on the Sources page with a clear reason so you can see what was filtered out.
Spam filtering
Emails flagged as spam are automatically ignored and will not create any files in Filently.
Keep your address private
Your Filently email address works like a private link – anyone who has it can send files to your account. To stay safe:
Only share your forwarding address with people and services you trust.
If you are unsure about the source, use manual mode so you can review every attachment before it is processed.
If you notice unauthorized files appearing, disable email forwarding immediately on the Sources page and contact us so we can generate a new address for you.
Your email address
Your Filently email address is generated when you first enable email forwarding. It stays the same even if you disable and re-enable the feature. You can find it on the Sources page.
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