IMAP attachments to Google Drive corrupt files

[ThoDe]

Hello,
I’m dealing with mail attachments issues.

Describe the problem/error/question

I can’t preview attachments from my workflow UI, by clicking on the View button.
Once I’ve uploaded the file to Google Drive, I can’t preview it either.
If I try to download the file on macOS, it can’t be opened either (mentioned as corrupted by the Preview application).

However, when I download the file directly from the e-mail (in Thunderbird), it can be opened.

I’ve also noticed that the file sizes differ:

• 1 file downloaded from email is 522kb but 940kb in the workflow,
• another is 304kb but 553kb in the workflow.

I’ve already checked and followed the solutions proposed in these threads, but the problem persists :

Download attachments from gmail trigger

Hi ! Here is a very simple workflow to download attachments form specific emails (matching a label in gmail) and uploading the attachments in Google drive. Problem is, when I have my binary, it looks like the workflow cannot locate the binary file to upload it to Google Drive. Indeed I have this error : “ERROR: File not found: /home/node/.n8n/binaryData/workflows/PUJKnDS4x51rE7FF/executions/19459/binary_data/4754dc33-6da4-4156-b0dc-5814aba46dff” Moreover, when I try …

Upload multiple attachments from GMail to Google Drive

Hi @Mike_M, welcome to the community! There currently is no built-in logic for handling multiple binary items with different names (such as attachment_0, attachment_1, etc.). However, what you could do is convert your single item with multiple attachments into multiple items with one predictable attachment each. An example workflow demonstrating the idea is available at Split Out Binary Data | n8n workflow template. After converting your data as shown above you can then simply have your Google…

Upload IMAP attachments to cloud

Guys, please help me understand what is “binary” as a file attachment I receive from the IMAP email server with an email message. In my case it looks like this: [image] [image] I am bit new, but don’t even get it with data I need to use as binary data and how to use it for example to upload file to Google Drive or make HTTP request and put a file in Cloud. Anyone can give a hand?

What is the error message (if any)?

No error in the workflow itself.

Please share your workflow

Information on your n8n setup

• n8n version: 1.39.1
• Database (default: SQLite): default
• n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):
• Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app): Docker
• Operating system: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Any help is welcome
Thanks

[barn4k]

hello @ThoDe

what file extension are you using? Is it the same as when you are downloading it via Thunderbird?

As far as I know, for example, Outlook on Windows saves messages in the .eml format, which is not compatible with MacOS (Outlook client on Mac downloads attachments as .msg files)

[ThoDe]

In the 2 files examples I mentionned, the first one is a .pdf and seem to be a type pdf in Google Drive and the second on is a .png and seem to be a type image in Google Drive.

[barn4k]

Maybe the code node is messing with the files. Try without it

[ThoDe]

Hello again!

I tried without the Code node and changed the “data” to “attachment_0” (without the quotes) in the Google Drive node but the issue persist.

I believed it might be related to the IMAP node itself as I can’t preview any file I’m trying to manipulate from the any of the workflow nodes. It show up like this when trying to preview the 2 examples mentioned in my first message:

Not sure it can give a clue or not but the mail concerned is hosted on a Cpanel webhost and when downloading the files directly from the email, everything can be opened properly.

Thanks for your help @barn4k !

[Jon]

Ah this is a new issue that we alerted to last week, we are tracking it internally as node-1344