Save email attachments to Dropbox automatically

Attachments belong in Dropbox, not in a mailbox

If your documents already live in Dropbox — shared with a bookkeeper, synced to the office machine, backed up — then a PDF sitting in an email is a PDF that has not been filed yet. Someone has to open the message, download the file, find the right folder and drop it in. That someone forgets, or goes on holiday.

MXcatch removes the step. Give the mail its own address — invoices@your-domain.com, scans@, contracts@ — and add a Save to Dropbox action to it. Everything that address receives is written to Dropbox on arrival.

What gets saved

Each email is saved in its own folder, named by date, subject and message id, inside the folder you chose when setting up the action:

Dropbox/Apps/MXcatch/Invoices/
  2026-11-12 Invoice INV-4471 from Acme (20177)/
    message.eml
    INV-4471.pdf
    timesheet.xlsx
  2026-11-14 Your receipt from Hosting Co (20413)/
    message.eml
    message.pdf
    receipt.pdf

• message.eml — the original email with all headers. Opens in Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird.
• Attachments — every file attached to the email, with its original filename.
• Extra formats — if you turn on Also save as, a PDF, HTML, plain-text or JPG version of the email itself.

The PDF option matters more than it looks. A lot of receipts arrive as an HTML email with nothing attached; with PDF ticked, those get a message.pdf in the folder, so your bookkeeper sees a document instead of a gap.

Setting it up

1. Add your domain and point its MX records at MXcatch — per-provider instructions.
2. Create an alias for the mail you want filed, such as invoices@.
3. Add the action. Go to Domains → your domain → the alias → + Add action and choose Save to Dropbox.
4. Click Connect Dropbox. You are sent to Dropbox to sign in and approve access, then back to MXcatch.
5. Choose a folder name, and optionally the extra formats, then save. Send a test email with a file attached and check the folder.

What MXcatch can access

The connection uses Dropbox's own sign-in (OAuth). You type your password at Dropbox, not at MXcatch, and MXcatch only receives a token for its app folder, Dropbox/Apps/MXcatch/. It cannot list, read or change anything else in your Dropbox.

You can disconnect the action whenever you like. Revoking MXcatch in Dropbox's own settings works too; the action simply stops saving.

Useful arrangements

One folder per kind of document

Each alias has its own actions, so invoices@ can save to an Invoices folder and contracts@ to Contracts. Share one of those folders with your accountant and they see new invoices without being on any email thread.

Scanner to Dropbox

Many office scanners and multifunction printers can only "scan to email". Point the scanner at scans@your-domain.com and the PDFs land in Dropbox.

Only the emails with files

Routing rules narrow down what is saved — sender ends with a supplier's domain, or subject contains invoice — so the folder does not fill with newsletters.

Other places to keep it

The same thing works with Google Drive, and with your own S3-compatible bucket if you want date-partitioned storage that a script can read — see email attachments to storage. Actions run independently, so you can save to Dropbox and forward to a mailbox at the same time.