Learn how to automatically save password protected PDF attachments from your Gmail to Google Drive. PDF files will be saved in Google Drive as unencrypted PDF documents that can be opened without entering a password.
Credit card companies and banks often send their financial statements as password-protected PDF files. These PDF attachments may be encrypted with passwords derived from the last four digits of your Social Security number, your date of birth, or a unique combination.
If you are to open these password-protected PDF files, you will have to enter the password every time. You can permanently remove passwords from PDF files using Google Chrome but this is a manual and time-consuming process, especially if you have a large number of password-protected PDF attachments in your Gmail inbox.
Important note – This tutorial will help you decrypt password-protected PDF files for which you know the password. You cannot use this method to unlock PDF files without knowing the password.
Imagine having an automated method to download your password-protected PDF attachments from Gmail directly to Google Drive as unencrypted PDF documents. This will completely eliminate the need to enter passwords to view your PDF files. Another advantage is that your PDF files will be searchable In Google Drive.
Save password protected PDF files to Google Drive
We’ll use the Gmail to Google Drive add-on for Google Sheets to automatically download password-protected PDF attachments from Gmail to Google Drive.
1. Create a Gmail search query
Once the addon is installed, your go sheet.new in the browser and choose Extensions > Save Emails and Attachments > Open App. Create a new workflow and provide a Gmail search query that will help you find all password-protected PDF files in your Gmail mailbox.
Search queries can be of any form filename:pdf has:attachment from:bank.com Where you can replace bank With the name of your bank or credit card company.
2. Select the Google Drive folder
On the next screen, select the folder on your Google Drive where you want to save the decrypted PDF files. You can also choose to save PDF files to a sub-folder in your Google Drive or Shared Drive.
In our example, we have set a sub-folder for downloading emails {{Sender Domain}} / {{Year}} / {{Month}} / {{Day}} So PDF files will be saved in a folder structure e.g bank.com/2024/01/15.
3. Unencrypt PDF attachments
On the next screen, enable the option Save attachments And choose PDF For list of permissions file extensions. Thus, only PDF files will be saved in Google Drive and all other email attachments will be ignored.
Next, enable the option Save PDF attachments without a password And provide the password you use to open the PDF files. This is the password you normally enter when opening PDF files in Adobe Acrobat or Google Chrome.
That’s what happened. Click Save Button to create a workflow and the add-on will now run in the background and save your password-protected PDF attachments from Gmail to Google Drive as decrypted PDF files that can be opened without entering a password.