Watched folders

A folder is a place in Files where files and leads arrive. You can add a file yourself, send one from your Library, email files or enquiries to the folder's own address, send one lead per call to its webhook, or upload a file through the API. A lead is one row, such as a form fill: it isn't a file, and it goes through the folder's trail on its own. Each file is a normal file in your Library, kept for your plan's retention period. The address that emailed it, and the email's subject, are removed after the same period.

Point a trail at a folder and, once the trail is switched on, it runs automatically on every file and lead that arrives. Without a trail, a folder just collects files.

Folders are on Starter and above.

Folders sit across the top of Files.

Each folder's address is on its Settings tab, under Its email address: click Show address to see it. While email-in is on, Copy its email address at the top of the folder's page copies it in one click. The address is long and random, so nobody can guess it. Treat it like a password.

Email a file to it and the .csv, .xlsx and .xls attachments land in the folder as new files, and a .pdf or .docx lands as a CSV of its rows, up to 10 from one email. Operelio ignores anything else on the email and skips a file over your plan's size limit. If Settings says email-in is not switched on for this workspace yet, the address will not receive anything, but the other ways in still work.

An email with no file is read as one lead. Auto-replies, newsletters, list and bulk mail, and bounces are recorded as not an enquiry, and make no lead.

Who can send catches files sent from the wrong account. Leave it empty to accept email from anyone who has the address. Add an address to allow one sender, or a domain such as fernwayhq.co to allow everyone at that domain. Operelio records an email from anyone else as rejected, and nothing lands. The From line on an email can be forged, so the address is what keeps the folder private.

Get a new address replaces the current one straight away, and the old one stops working without a bounce. Use it if the address has leaked, then share the new one.

Who hears about it lists the people who get a notification in Operelio when a file is emailed to the folder, or when an email to it is rejected. Files added any other way notify no one. If the list is empty, no one is told. Unlike a trail's list, it does not fall back to your admins.

Its webhook, on the folder's Settings tab, takes one lead per call from Zapier, Make or your own code: anything that can POST JSON with the secret in a header. Any field names work, and the fields become the lead's columns. A list belongs in an upload or an email.

The webhook takes nothing until it has a secret. Make one, then paste it into Zapier, Make or your code. We only show a secret once, when it is made. Send it with each call in the Authorization header, as Bearer and then the secret. A call that's retried is one lead: Operelio matches it by its Idempotency-Key header when it has one, and by its exact body when it doesn't.

Each call is one lead, up to 64 KB. A folder takes up to 60 leads a minute and 1,000 an hour. Past that, leads are still taken and gathered into one job every 10 minutes.

Get a new secret keeps the old one working for 24 hours, so your senders don't break while you paste the new one in. Stop the old secret now turns the old one away at once: do this if it leaked.

Typeform can't send that header, so it has a door of its own. Under Typeform on the same tab, copy the folder's Typeform address and click Make a Typeform secret. In Typeform, add a webhook to your form with this address, and set its secret to the folder's Typeform secret. Email, phone, name and company questions fill those columns, and every other question gets its own column, named by the question. A test response from Typeform makes a real lead.

A form on your own site needs no tool at all. Under Website form on the same tab, click Make a form address, then copy the Code for your page into your page. Any field names work, and each one becomes a column. Keep the two _op_ fields: they turn bots away. A post that looks like spam waits in Held for 7 days, and never runs. Sites that can send limits which sites are taken, and the Thank-you address is where visitors go once their form is sent.

You pick the folder on the trail, not on the folder. The folder's Settings tab shows Watched by with the trail's name and whether it is on, or No trail.

Files can arrive in a folder nobody watches. When you switch on a trail for that folder, it asks whether those files go through or stay where they are.

A new file usually starts its run within a few minutes, and a lead goes through on its own as soon as it arrives. The When a trail runs guide has the timing, and the trail's history shows each arrival and what happened to it.

You cannot delete a folder while a trail watches it. Delete the trail first; pausing it is not enough. The files stay in your Library. The folder's email address and its record of arrivals are deleted.