Attachments.me, the startup that promises to take the pain out of searching through email attachments, is gradually ramping up the services it’s offering to users: from today, it is launching an option to automatically file your attachments to specific folders in the cloud; and it has also expanded support to include Box, which now joins Dropbox in its list of supported cloud storage partners.
The news caps off some significant developments we’ve seen at attachments.me since announcing a seed round of $500,000 from Foundry Group last year: others have included Dropbox support and Gmail extensions for Chrome and Firefox.
The addition of an automatic filtering feature underscores the growth of time-saving services that we’re seeing around cloud storage — in other words, it’s not just yet another set of dumb folders for filing things away. In this case, attachments.me will let users set up rules to decide how attachments get stored, and then when the attachments come in, they’ll automatically go to specified folders.
The service sounds promising, if somewhat limited in this first iteration: for starters, attachments can be filtered by sender and file type — but not subject or other keywords. Also, a user can only set up the rules in attachments.me’s Chrome extension.
However, it’s worth nothing that in a blog post announcing the new service, co-founder Jesse Miller says that this is just 1.0 of this service: “We have a ton more options we are going to add to automatic filing,” he writes.
One of these, apparently, will be letting users set up automating rules via the tools’ iPhone app as well. Another area that has room for expansion: the platforms that attachments.me supports overall. It has yet to add other email providers, apart from Google’s Gmail.
Meanwhile, the new support for Box is a logical next step for attachments.me as it looks to grow its customer base, which currently accounts for some 40 million Gmail attachments.
Specifically, it could see attachments.me make bigger inroads into the enterprise segment: Box.net last year signed a strategic deal with HP to offer its cloud services on selected HP desktops, and, on the back of an $81 million Series D round of funding in October 2011, Box could have other, more aggressive expansion plans on the cards, too.
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