Attachments not opening in Gmail send by notification

[Khuned_Sachdev]

We have an Automation setup to send an email notification via gmail account. In the email body is an Attachment field. The email recipients could open the attachments perfectly fine for month.

In the last 2-3 days (likely as a results of the Attachment URL change/expiration), these attachments thumbnails show in the email body of the email notification recipients, but there is an error when clicking on the thumbnail image to try to view the attached file. Here is what the recipients see…

The email recipients, as in the example of the screen shot above, are not users of Airtable. We just send them email notifications.

Any way to fix this?

Thanks,
Khuned

[Bill_French]

Khuned_Sachdev:

Any way to fix this?

What is the latency period between the moment the email is generated and the point at which the user clicks to see the attachment?

I presume that this approach will never work again if the recipient doesn’t act on the access within ~2 hours and you’re gonna need a CDN to fix it.

Soon You'll Need a CDN Show and tell

One of the best features of Airtable is the ability to drag images, files, and even videos (i.e., digital artefacts) right into an attachment field. When you do this, Airtable makes a copy of your image and stores metadata about the image into your base. It also quietly moves the copy of your image to its content delivery network (CDN). The URL to your image has been openly accessible providing a wonderful way to share access to your assets For almost eight years, this has been possible but that…

[ScottWorld]

I’m so confused — will Airtable still allow those attachments to be viewed through a shared read-only view? If so, @Khuned_Sachdev could potentially include a link to the shared view.

Otherwise, it looks like the combination of Google Drive + Make.com will be picking up a ton of business for these types of email automations.

[ScottWorld]

But I think the solution here is an easy one.

it doesn’t look like @Khuned_Sachdev is actually attaching the attachments to the email.

If you actually attach the attachments, it should be fine, no?

It looks like you’re embedding a URL field, instead of attaching actual attachments.

[kuovonne · Accepted solution]

How are you including the attachment in the email? Are you putting the token for the attachment in the message body, or are you adding the attachment as an attachment to the email?

If you are including the attachment in the message body, this problem is likely due to the issue with expiring urls. You can opt-out of expiring urls for three months. (See this support page for instructions.)

On the other hand, if you are including the attachments as actual email attachments, you should not have problems with expiring urls as the file will actually be part of the email and not a link.

[ScottWorld]

Yep, that’s what I just deduced above as well.

[Khuned_Sachdev]

@kuovonne thanks for that clarification. I have also attached it now in the Attachment feature in the automation, and let’s see what happens tomorrow.

It was nice to be able to place the attachment in the part of the body that it was contextually most relevant. I guess if it now presumably is attached at the bottom of the email, then we just all have to live with it. What a shame to see AT moving in reverse, for a company that has pretty been very progressive.

[Khuned_Sachdev]

You are correct, @ScottWorld

[ScottWorld]

Oh, I just noticed this new information from the support article below:

Changes to the way Automations interact with the Attachment field

This update includes changes to the way Airtable Automations handles the URL property for attachment records in the following ways:

• The URL property will now change to attachment viewer URLs. This new property still allows users to view the attachment, but will require that they are signed into Airtable in order to view it.
• We are introducing a new expiring download URL property for use cases that want to offer downloadable public links that will expire after some time.

support.airtable.com

Changes to Airtable Attachments | Airtable Support

In an effort to increase attachment security, on November 8th, 2022 Airtable will be incorporating expiring links functionality. That...

[Bill_French]

ScottWorld:

The URL property will now change to attachment viewer URLs. This new property still allows users to view the attachment, but will require that they are signed into Airtable in order to view it.

As I predicted (and offered to wager 3-to-1 sandwiches), Airtable would realize this requirement and make it so formula fields could continue to have access to attachment URLs. I noticed this exact behaviour in my tests - URLs acquired from formulas and requested from the aitrable.com domain, will always render properly.