Gmail and Outlook Automation: Auto-Reply, Labels, Attachments to Drive

What you can automate in email

Workflow	Trigger	Actions
Auto-reply to enquiries	New email matching a search	Send templated reply
Label or move emails	New email	Apply label / move to folder by sender or keywords
Attachments to Drive	New email with attachment	Upload file to a Drive folder
Email to task	Starred or flagged email	Create task in Trello, Asana or monday.com
Invoice capture	Email from billing@	Save PDF, extract totals, add row to Sheets
AI triage	New email	Classify with an LLM, route to the right person

The example: save invoice attachments to Google Drive

Goal: every email with "invoice" in the subject and a PDF attachment is saved to a "Invoices/2026" folder in Google Drive and logged in a sheet.

In Zapier

1. Trigger: Gmail → New Attachment (or Microsoft Outlook → New Email with "has attachments").
2. In the trigger, set a search such as subject:invoice has:attachment.
3. Action: Google Drive → Upload File. Map the attachment file field, choose the folder.
4. Action: Google Sheets → Create Spreadsheet Row with sender, date and file link.

Note: if an email has several attachments, Zapier's New Attachment trigger fires once per attachment.

In Make

1. Trigger: Gmail → Watch Emails, criteria: subject contains "invoice", has attachment.
2. Iterator on Attachments[] so each file becomes its own bundle.
3. Filter: file name ends with .pdf.
4. Google Drive → Upload a File, map file name and data.
5. Google Sheets → Add a Row.

For Outlook, swap the trigger for Microsoft 365 Email → Watch Emails.

In n8n

1. Trigger: Gmail Trigger with filters (search subject:invoice has:attachment) and Download Attachments enabled. For Outlook, use Microsoft Outlook Trigger.
2. Optional Code or Split Out step to handle multiple binary attachments.
3. Google Drive node: Upload, input binary field attachment_0, choose the folder.
4. Google Sheets node: Append Row.

Auto-reply and labels: quick recipes

• Zapier: Gmail New Email Matching Search → Gmail Reply to Email; Gmail Add Label to Email.
• Make: Gmail Watch Emails → Router → one route sends a reply, another adds a label.
• n8n: Gmail Trigger → Switch (by sender domain or keyword) → Gmail Reply / Add Label nodes. Add an AI Agent or Text Classifier node to decide the label from the email body.

Comparison

	Zapier	Make	n8n
Multiple attachments	One run per attachment	Iterator	Per-item binary handling
AI classification	AI by Zapier step	OpenAI module	Built-in Text Classifier / AI Agent
Outlook support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cost at 500 emails/month	~1,000 tasks	~1,500–2,000 credits	~500 executions or $0 self-hosted

Tips

• Use precise search queries so you do not process newsletters.
• Send auto-replies from a shared inbox or alias, not a personal account.
• Avoid loops: never auto-reply to emails your own automation sends.

Related

• Google Drive and Docs automation
• n8n credentials for Google and Microsoft