How to use email attachments in Mail for iPhone and iPad

With iOS 9 you can attach files to emails and save attachments from emails. At last, the productivity circle is complete!

We've been wishing for better file attachments in Mail for years and with iOS 9, Apple has delivered. No longer do you have to go to an app and share a file from there. For security reasons, you still can't go wandering through the file system, but now you attach any file from any storage provider app, including iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and more. And, when you get an email attachment, you can now save it out to your preferred storage provider as well.

How to attach iCloud Drive files to email on iPhone and iPad

Because Apple's iCloud service is built into iOS, files located in iCloud Drive are simplest to attach.

Launch Mail from your Home screen
Tap Compose to start a new email.
Touch-and-hold to bring up the editing menu.
Tap the arrow button to get more options.
Tap Add Attachment.
Tap on the folder that contains the file you want to attach, if it's not at the top level.
Tap on the file you want to attach.

Add a recipient, a message, and you're good to go.

How to attach Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive or enterprise files to email on iPhone and iPad

Thanks to document provider extensions you can also attach files from other popular online storage services, and from an enterprise storage system if you have one.

For the document provider extension to be available, 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 attaching away.

Launch Mail from your Home screen
Tap Compose to start a new email.
Touch-and-hold to bring up the editing menu.
Tap the arrow button to get more options.
Tap Add Attachment.
Tap on Locations at the top left.
Tap on the storage provider you want to use. If you don't see your preferred provider:
1. Tap on More.
2. Switch On your preferred storage provider.
3. Tap on Done.
Tap on the folder that contains the file you want to attach, if it's not at the top level.
Tap on the file you want to attach.
Some providers, like Google Drive, allow for multiple accounts. In those cases:
1. Tap on the account you want to access.
2. Tap on the folder that contains the file you want to attach, if it's not at the top level.
3. Tap on the file you want to attach.

Add a recipient, a message, and you're done.

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.

Launch Mail from your Home screen.
Open the email that contains the attachment.
Long press on the attachment to bring up the Share sheet.
Tap on Save Attachment.
Tap on the folder you want to save the file into.
Tap on Move to this location at the bottom to save the file.

Yeah, the language is precise given the mechanics of what it's doing, but it's not intuitive. Just know that, once you're done, the file will be saved in that location and accessible from all your iCloud devices.

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.

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