I tried creating a flow to send a mail using excel data and with attachments which is stored in onedrive (zip folder). the flow ran successfully and the mail is sent but not able to open the zip file attachment. I am getting this error.

Question

I tried creating a flow to send a mail using excel data and with attachments which is stored in onedrive (zip folder). the flow ran successfully and the mail is sent but not able to open the zip file attachment. I am getting this error.

Chinchu Sidhardh S B 0

I have created a power automate flow to pull the data from an excel table. This is to send a mail to the emails available in the table with their corresponding data. There will be multiple rows for same mail id but will be sending only one mail per person with combined data. And it has to have an attachment which is a zip file folder and it is saved in onedrive. To fetch the correct folder per mail id, the folders are saved in the name of one of the columns in the table. I have created the flow and send the mail but the attachment is not able to open. It shows invalid path error. Can someone please help me with this? User's image

Chinchu Sidhardh S B 0 Reputation points

2025-11-24T10:11:45.62+00:00

Thank you for your response. I am attaching my flow here. I still didn't understand where it went wrong. I am new in power automate. It might be a simple issue, but I am not able to rectify that myself. I really appreciate your time and help.
Ian-T 6,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-24T14:09:25.4533333+00:00
Hello Chinchu Sidhardh S B,

Thanks for sharing your flow details! The main issue is that the email step is inside the wrong loop, and the attachment isn’t passed as binary. Here’s the quick fix:

List rows present in a table (Excel Online)

Get unique emails > union(select(...))

Apply to each (unique emails)

Filter array: rows for current email

Create HTML table: from filtered rows

Get file content (OneDrive): use file path or ID

Send an email (V2):

To: current email

Body: HTML table

Attachment: File Content (binary), not text

Sending email inside row loop > multiple emails

HTML table created before filtering > wrong data

Attachment passed as text > ZIP unreadable

This pattern ensures one email per recipient, correct table, and valid ZIP attachment. If you share your Filter Array and file path setup, I can help refine the expressions.

For a better support in Power Automate, please kindly visit Power Platform Community - post your question there so experts in this field can provide the best support.
Chinchu Sidhardh S B 0 Reputation points

2025-11-25T06:37:43.4866667+00:00
Thank you so much for your response! Here in this case, I believe I need 2 loops, one with the filtering per email ids and next loop is for getting the attachment with filtering based on the name. that is how I made it actually by referring videos and all. So if I use only one filter to filter based on the email how it will take the correct zip folder? Please correct me if i am wrong. Please let me know if anything is needed from my end. I really need to make this work.Here’s what I’m trying to achieve:- If there are multiple rows for the same recipient, the flow should combine all their data and send just one email.

Each row corresponds to a zipped folder stored in OneDrive, named according to one of the columns in the table.

If a zipped folder is missing for a row, the email should still be sent with the combined data, simply skipping that attachment.

Below is the file path.
Ian-T 6,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-25T09:41:17.8166667+00:00
Hi Chinchu Sidhardh S B,

Thank you for the quick response.

You are right when using 2 loops:

The first loop filter or group the data by email address, so all rows for each recipient are collected together.

The second one iterate through each row for that recipient to gather attachments. For each row, match the attachment based on the corresponding column value.

If an attachment is missing for a particular row, you can slip adding that attachment and continue with the rest. Your flow should be able to conditionally check for file existence before attaching.

Ensure your flow checks both the file path and file existence before attempting to attach. to avoid sending broken or inaccessible zip files.

If you still encounter errors when opening the zip attachments, please double-check that:

The zipping process is completed properly, and the files are not corrupted.

Your flow references the correct OneDrive fil path and retrieves the "File Content" using the appropriate connector actions.

The attachment is added using the raw file content, not just the file reference or link.

I hope these steps help refine your flow and solve the attachment issue.
Chinchu Sidhardh S B 0 Reputation points

2025-11-25T13:06:10.1533333+00:00

I truly appreciate all the guidance you’ve shared so far. I’ve been stuck on this issue for the past three weeks and still haven’t been able to figure it out. I was wondering if there’s any way I could reach out to you directly for quick assistance—only if that’s possible and convenient for you. If not, I completely understand. I posted this on the Power Platform forum yesterday but haven’t received any response yet, and I’m unsure about the expected turnaround time. I’d be really grateful for any help you can provide.
Ian-T 6,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-26T06:44:42.0766667+00:00

Hi Chinchu Sidhardh S B,

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, as forum moderators - we do not have the authority to provide support via direct chat, we can only give workarounds through answers and comment on this forum.

I'm glad that you have posted your question in Power Platform - where experts in this field can give you most effective guidance to your question.

Thank you for taking your time reading my answers, I hope my answers were helpful to you.

Best regards.

1 answer

Your answer

Chinchu Sidhardh S B 0 Reputation points

2025-11-24T10:11:45.62+00:00

Thank you for your response. I am attaching my flow here. I still didn't understand where it went wrong. I am new in power automate. It might be a simple issue, but I am not able to rectify that myself. I really appreciate your time and help.
Ian-T 6,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-24T14:09:25.4533333+00:00

Hello Chinchu Sidhardh S B,

Thanks for sharing your flow details! The main issue is that the email step is inside the wrong loop, and the attachment isn’t passed as binary. Here’s the quick fix:

List rows present in a table (Excel Online)

Get unique emails > union(select(...))

Apply to each (unique emails)

Filter array: rows for current email

Create HTML table: from filtered rows

Get file content (OneDrive): use file path or ID

Send an email (V2):

To: current email

Body: HTML table

Attachment: File Content (binary), not text

Sending email inside row loop > multiple emails

HTML table created before filtering > wrong data

Attachment passed as text > ZIP unreadable

This pattern ensures one email per recipient, correct table, and valid ZIP attachment. If you share your Filter Array and file path setup, I can help refine the expressions.

For a better support in Power Automate, please kindly visit Power Platform Community - post your question there so experts in this field can provide the best support.
Chinchu Sidhardh S B 0 Reputation points

2025-11-25T06:37:43.4866667+00:00

Thank you so much for your response! Here in this case, I believe I need 2 loops, one with the filtering per email ids and next loop is for getting the attachment with filtering based on the name. that is how I made it actually by referring videos and all. So if I use only one filter to filter based on the email how it will take the correct zip folder? Please correct me if i am wrong. Please let me know if anything is needed from my end. I really need to make this work.Here’s what I’m trying to achieve:- If there are multiple rows for the same recipient, the flow should combine all their data and send just one email.

Each row corresponds to a zipped folder stored in OneDrive, named according to one of the columns in the table.

If a zipped folder is missing for a row, the email should still be sent with the combined data, simply skipping that attachment.

Below is the file path.
Ian-T 6,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-25T09:41:17.8166667+00:00

Hi Chinchu Sidhardh S B,

Thank you for the quick response.

You are right when using 2 loops:

The first loop filter or group the data by email address, so all rows for each recipient are collected together.

The second one iterate through each row for that recipient to gather attachments. For each row, match the attachment based on the corresponding column value.

If an attachment is missing for a particular row, you can slip adding that attachment and continue with the rest. Your flow should be able to conditionally check for file existence before attaching.

Ensure your flow checks both the file path and file existence before attempting to attach. to avoid sending broken or inaccessible zip files.

If you still encounter errors when opening the zip attachments, please double-check that:

The zipping process is completed properly, and the files are not corrupted.

Your flow references the correct OneDrive fil path and retrieves the "File Content" using the appropriate connector actions.

The attachment is added using the raw file content, not just the file reference or link.

I hope these steps help refine your flow and solve the attachment issue.
Chinchu Sidhardh S B 0 Reputation points

2025-11-25T13:06:10.1533333+00:00

I truly appreciate all the guidance you’ve shared so far. I’ve been stuck on this issue for the past three weeks and still haven’t been able to figure it out. I was wondering if there’s any way I could reach out to you directly for quick assistance—only if that’s possible and convenient for you. If not, I completely understand. I posted this on the Power Platform forum yesterday but haven’t received any response yet, and I’m unsure about the expected turnaround time. I’d be really grateful for any help you can provide.
Ian-T 6,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-26T06:44:42.0766667+00:00

Hi Chinchu Sidhardh S B,

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, as forum moderators - we do not have the authority to provide support via direct chat, we can only give workarounds through answers and comment on this forum.

I'm glad that you have posted your question in Power Platform - where experts in this field can give you most effective guidance to your question.

Thank you for taking your time reading my answers, I hope my answers were helpful to you.

Best regards.

Answer 1

Hello Chinchu Sidhardh S B,

Thank you for posting Microsoft Q&A forum.

When sending a zip file as an attachment in an email via Power Automate, and the recipient cannot open the zip file, the issue often related to how the file content is retrieved and attached.

Here are some steps that you can follow to ensure the zip file attachment works correctly:

You can kindly use the Get file content (using path or ID) action in Power Automate to retrieve the file content from OneDrive or SharePoint, make sure this action returns the file in binary format.
Attach the File Content from the "Get file content" action directly to the Attachments Content field in the "Send an email" action. Please avoid converting the content to any other format such as bas64 or string, unless specifically required by the email action.
Confirm the file's mime type is correctly interpreted as "application/zip" or equivalent. Incorrect content type of corrupted file content can cause the attachment to be unreachable.
If the zip file is inside a folder, ensure that you are retrieving the actual zip file, not the folder or a shortcut.
If the zip file is password protected or encrypted, recipients may not be able to open it without the password.
Please kindly test the flow by downloading the attached zip file from the received email and opening it locally to check if the issue is with the flow of the recipient's environment.

I hope my answer helps. Thank you for your time and hope you have a great day.

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I tried creating a flow to send a mail using excel data and with attachments which is stored in onedrive (zip folder). the flow ran successfully and the mail is sent but not able to open the zip file attachment. I am getting this error.

1 answer

Your answer