Attachments are incredibly difficult to manage, especially in Gmail. Sure, you can use one of their custom search hack like has:attachment myfile.txt to locate a specific file or files with a particular extension. The problem is, Gmail seriously lacks content relevant search, like what you see on Google Images. Being a Gmail user since its inception, I’ve sent and received tens of thousands of emails, and at least a tenth of them have attachments. I don’t have to tell you how messy it would be if you’ve to open every other mail to find that one photo your girlfriend shared with you 5 years ago (True story!).
There should be a better way, I can hear you say. Oh! Yes, there is and that’s exactly what I’m going to show you today.
What is Attachments.me?
E-mails is popular even today because it helps you share your thoughts in detail, with anyone else, simply. Its ability to include file attachments just made its case stronger. In many respects, Gmail brought about a revolution in the email industry with their virtually unlimited storage accounts. Suddenly many people started using it for backing up their personal data. Overtime, attachments started growing and it was nearly impossible to get the right file in one attempt.
Attachments.me is a San Francisco based startup that aims to rectify this problem. If it does it right, it could revolutionize the way we use email all over again.
Getting Started
To get started, all you have to do is login to Attachments.me with your Gmail account. Once you’ve done that, Attachments.me scans your mailbox for any attachments and indexes them sequentially. For more advanced features and managing directly from the mailbox, you’ll need to install their browser plugin on Chrome or Firefox.
Advanced Search
Thumbnails
Attachments.me caches a copy of your attachments in Amazon AWS, generates a thumbnail and extracts meta-data for every file. One thing to note here is, it periodically syncs up with your mailbox for any changes. Another important feature is, when you get the same attachments multiple times, it stacks them up together.
Their advanced search makes it easy to retrieve your attachments. It does a context based search inside your files for better results. Searching can be done in two ways: directly from your mailbox(with the browser plugin), and from the Attachments.me web interface in any web browser. All your attachments are arranged beautifully as thumbnails, making it really easy to navigate.
Attachments in the Cloud
Cloud services
The best part about Attachments.me is its ability to sync your data with other cloud services like Dropbox, Box.net, and Google Drive. Most of us receive many emails daily as a part of our day jobs. Some of these are really than the rest and would require a proper backup. What’s better than stashing these files in your existing cloud storage accounts?
Setup rules
This too can be automated with the help of custom rules, in a breeze. Let’s say you receive your credit card payment receipt from your bank every month. Just create a rule, and watch your bill show up synced in your Dropbox folder, every time. I’ve already found this handy on so many occasions.
Bookmarks
I also found their bookmarks option interesting, letting you bookmark searches and individual attachments. It could save a lot of time, if you frequently search for some specific attachments or need to find files with certain criteria regularly.
Usability
The application itself resides in two different places: one in Attachments.me website and the other within Gmail itself. The Attachments.me web app looks pretty, overall. The data is neatly arranged and is easily accessible. On hovering the thumbnail, you get the file details and a few buttons for some of the frequently used operations. Adding a bookmark is also really simple.
Gmail integration
I particularly loved their Gmail integration. It fits in seamlessly and comes to the foreground only when absolutely required. There is a small panel in the right hand side when you’ve an attachment, and it lets you manage your rules and sync your data on the cloud.
Essentially, it’s a companion tool for Gmail and doesn’t have much scope outside the mailbox. Considering that, they’ve done a great job in making it user-friendly.
Other thoughts
It’s a great service but it still has its own issues. I found the webapp a shade slower than I’d have expected, and it does take a while to pull up the thumbnails. Another minor issues I noted is the systems inability to weed out unnecessary results. Especially when you’re running a client-centric business, you’d be sending a lot of mails back and forth to many people. If you want to retrieve a message sent by your manager a few years back it becomes difficult even in Attachments.me with their current interface. They don’t seem to have provisions to filter out data based on a certain time period or a particular sender. Another feature I badly miss is an option to open attachments with a double click, instead of a button. But that’s my personal choice and shouldn’t bother you too much.
And that’s a wrap
As a proud Gmail user, who has not deleted a single mail since 2004, the default Gmail settings don’t offer me much with respect to attachments. It is really surprising and yet baffling that Google, who created a separate industry out of context based searching, hasn’t implemented it on their flagship email app. I find Attachments.me an important tool in my kit and would strongly recommend you to check it out if you’re struggling to keep up with all your email attachments.
Have you ever tried Attachments.me or any other similar services on web? How was your experience with it? Do you believe Attachments.me would make a juicy acquisition for Google? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.