upload file


pdfMachine email attachment upload

Sometimes you might not want to embed the attachments in the email, just send a link. This cuts down on email size and may increase deliverability.

There are two supported methods, uploading to Broadgun servers and uploading to your Google Drive account. The Google Drive method only works with 'pdfMachine merge' - not pdfMachine.

Upload attachments to Broadgun servers

If the text:
{*ATTACHMENTS*}
appears in the email body, the attachments will not be attached to the email, they will be uploaded to a broadgun server in a secure manner. Links to the files will be placed in the email.

Upload attachments to Google Drive

If the text:
{*ATTACHMENTS_GOOGLE_DRIVE folderName *}
appears in the email body, the attachments will not be attached to the email, they will be uploaded to your Google Drive account in the folder 'folderName'. Links to the files will be placed in the email.

Why send links to uploaded files?

  • Lightweight Emails

    Without attachments, the emails are very small and less costly to send and store. Small emails are much more mobile friendly and may increase deliverablity.

  • Overcome email attachment size limits

    Allows files up to 200mb in size.

  • Better Security - one shot downloads

    One shot downloads only apply when uploading to Broadgun Servers. The uploaded files are deleted from the server after downloading by the email recipient, they can no longer be used. So if that email was accidentally forwarded to someone or the email account was compromised at some later date, the link to the PDF would be useless. If the user clicks on the link in the email and the file has been previously downloaded, this indicates a data breach may have occurred so they can take mitigating actions. The files are encrypted before sending to the server. They are decrypted in the browser client. The key is never seen by the server, so the PDFs remain secret from all while on the server.

Upload to Broadgun Servers - the secure process

The files that are uploaded are first encrypted at the clients PC with AES256 encryption, which the US government approves for top secret data. The encryption key is randomly generated. The key is never seen by the Broadgun server - the file is decrypted in the clients browser. The key is encoded in the link to the file, which is sent via email. The file on the server is deleted after the link has been used or after 30 days. Whichever comes first.

  • Generate random encryption key
  • AES256 encryption of file on client
  • Upload encrypted file over secure HTTPS connection
  • Create publicly accessible - impossible to guess - link to file, containing encryption key
  • Place the URL link into the email
  • Send the email
  • Email recipient clicks on the link, which loads the decryption/download web page in the clients browser.
  • The file is decrypted in the browser
  • Broadgun server deletes the file.