Google decided to make it easier to send emails to other people using Gmail, so it’s now possible to add one or more emails as an attachment.
Typically, if you want to share an email you’ve received with someone else the easiest way to do so is to forward the email. However, that’s not always suitable, especially when there’s multiple email threads to send. Until now, you’d have to download the emails first from Gmail and then add them as an attachment, but not anymore.
New functionality added to Gmail this week allows you to send emails as an attachment by a couple of different methods. The first is to create a new draft email, then select which emails you want to attach by ticking them, before drag and dropping them into the draft window. Gmail will then automatically add all the selected emails as an attachment.
Alternatively, you can select the emails you want to forward and then access the three-dot menu (overflow menu) and click the “Forward as attachment” option. This will create a new thread with the emails attached and ready to be sent.
There’s no limit on how many emails you can add as an attachment and each one gets converted into a .eml file (Email Message file). Clicking on a .eml file from within Gmail opens it to read in a new window. Whichever email service or software you use should be able to handle opening Email Message files, so forwarding them to any recipient from Gmail shouldn’t cause problems.
Google decided to add this new functionality because, “We’ve heard from you that there are situations where attaching emails makes more sense than forwarding separate emails, like wanting to forward multiple messages related to a single topic.”
The feature is rolling out slowly to Gmail users. You’ll know it’s available to use when the three-dot menu has the “Forward as attachment” option appear.