Help & troubleshooting
The ten things we get the most questions about. If none of these cover the issue you're having, email support@inboxbinder.com and include a screenshot, and we'll help you as soon as we can.
A forwarded email has images behind the “…” button
Gmail hides much of a forwarded message behind a small … button. InboxBinder still lists the images it finds there. Each one is ticked and marked In the collapsed part of the email, so a forwarded email normally saves everything without you expanding anything.
Check: a newsletter or marketing email can hide extra copies of its images (for example, versions made for phones) behind the …. They are ticked too, so the PDF can end up with repeat pages. Untick the copies you do not want before you save.
The file is on an earlier message in the thread
When you reply to an email, Gmail does not copy its attachments into your reply, so a document a client sent two messages ago stays on that earlier message. InboxBinder reads the bottom-most expanded message in the thread you have open, and it also lists the files on the thread's other messages.
Each earlier message with files is its own group above the open message's files, earliest first. Its files start unselected: click Add all on the group, or select single files. Files you add come first in the PDF or zip, in the thread's order. If the same file was sent on two messages, it goes in once, and the result names the copy it left out.
If the popup says Files in earlier messages were not checked, InboxBinder could not read the rest of the thread from Gmail (it waits up to 4 seconds). Close the popup and click the icon again.
The popup found nothing at all
An empty list usually means one of these:
- You are looking at the inbox list rather than an open message. Open the message first.
- The tab is not Gmail. InboxBinder only runs on
mail.google.com. - The message has no images, attached images, PDFs, or zip files for InboxBinder to use. Signature logos and tiny icons are still listed in the popup, but they start unticked (see the next section).
If Gmail was open before you installed the extension, try reloading the tab so the extension can recognize it.
What happens to zip attachments
Zip files are opened when you save, and the images and PDFs inside are added to your PDF. Each zip is its own row in the Zip files section of the popup. Untick it to leave that zip out of the save. When you save as separate files instead (see below), a zip attachment goes into your zip as it is, unopened.
The counts shown before you save do not include what is inside a zip. The extension cannot see into an archive until it downloads it, and that happens as part of the save, so the number of pages you get may be higher than the counts suggested.
Left out of a zip, and always named in the result rather than quietly dropped: anything that is not an image or a PDF, password-protected files, zips inside zips, and files that are unusually large.
A page is sideways and the automatic rotation did not fix it
Photos carry a tag recording which way up the camera was held, and InboxBinder uses it to turn them upright for you. A document that was scanned sideways is a different problem: its tag is perfectly correct and the page still looks wrong. Nothing automatic can know that. Only you can see it.
Fix: find the file in the popup list and click Rotate on its row until the angle is right. An image's thumbnail turns as you click, so you can see the page before you save. An attached file shows the angle on its button. Then save. If the popup closes before you save, your choices are still there when you reopen it on the same message, until you close Chrome.
Turning a page costs nothing in quality: the original image goes into the PDF untouched and only the page is turned. Two things this cannot reach, which the popup also tells you: a PDF turns as one whole document, so a single sideways page inside an otherwise correct scan stays as it is, and files inside a zip cannot be turned individually.
"Some embedded images were only available at reduced resolution"
Gmail serves some inline images only as display-sized previews rather than at their original size. When that happens, the extension uses the best version Gmail will give it. If you need full resolution for those specific images, ask the sender to attach them instead of pasting them into the message body.
Where the PDF goes, and how it is named
The finished PDF or zip is saved to your browser's normal Downloads folder. Tick Ask where to save in the popup if you would rather choose the location each time.
Files are named date_sender_subject.pdf (e.g. 2026-09-08_maria-alvarez_documents-for-my-case.pdf). The date is the date the email was received, not the date you saved it, so the file sorts in the order things actually happened. Re: and Fwd: prefixes are stripped and long subjects are shortened. When you save files from more than one message in a thread, the name comes from the newest of them.
The date is read from an English-language Gmail. If your Gmail is set to another language, the file name starts with undated_ instead of the date. The PDF itself is not affected.
Pages follow the popup list from top to bottom: files you added from earlier messages first, then the open message's embedded images, its attached files, and the contents of its zip files. Photos taken sideways or upside down are rotated upright automatically with best effort. If a file cannot be read, it is left out and named in the result, so you always know exactly what is in the PDF.
Saving the files separately (.zip)
Under Save as one PDF, click Save as separate files (.zip) to get the same selected files in one zip instead of one PDF. Each file is numbered in list order, for example 01-contract.pdf and 02-IMG_0042.jpg, and the zip is named like the PDF, ending in .zip. A zip counts as one save, the same as a PDF.
A file you did not turn goes in unchanged, as Gmail delivered it. A file you turned keeps its quality: a JPEG photo only gets its orientation tag changed, a PDF has its pages turned, and any other image is saved again as a PNG. If a file cannot be turned, for example a password-protected PDF, it goes in unturned and the result names it.
Open InboxBinder from the keyboard
You can give InboxBinder a keyboard shortcut. Open chrome://extensions/shortcuts in Chrome, find InboxBinder, and type the keys you want in its Activate the extension box. With a message open in Gmail, press those keys to open the popup.
What does it cost?
Your first 5 saves are free. After those, you get 2 more free saves every calendar month, which reset on the 1st. There is no account and no card for any of that.
If you need more than 2 saves in a month, unlimited saves are $49 a year. You can click Subscribe in the popup at any time, even while you still have free saves. If you already paid, for example on another computer, click Restore license instead. Checkout is handled by ExtensionPay and Stripe on their own pages; your card details never touch the extension. The free saves are counted only on your own computer, in the browser's extension storage.