Copy pictures from emails to gallery folder..

[Homey]

I'm trying to set up a cheap android tablet as a digital photo frame for my mother. I was thinking that I might create a dedicated email address for it and then get the family to email pics to it as they want to. What I'd like to be able to do is to have tasker copy the pictures from the emails into the gallery folder so that the slideshow app will simply include the new pictures as they arrive.

I'm not really familiar with tasker -I bought it some time ago but have never had time to learn it! With the summer coming up,I was going to make the effort.

Can this be done using tasker? 

Can anyone show me how?

[Rich D]

What I'd like to be able to do is to have tasker copy the pictures from the emails into the gallery folder so that the slideshow app will simply include the new pictures as they arrive.

Nice idea..

> Can this be done using tasker? 

I would think so .. you would probably want to start by trying the k9 email. That one integrates with tasker and will give you more options. However what you really need is an email provider that will let you automatically download your attachments when received. I would start with that and Google around and see if you can find one that does this..

Once the email is in your downloaded file you can use the 'file modified' context to trigger a task that will move the pictures. If for some reason 'file modified' context  does not work for you, you could simply check the folder daily and move the pictures that way as well.

Rich..

[Homey]

Thats great, thanks
I'm pretty sure that even the default android mail app has a 'Always download pictures' option, I'll check that.
If anyone has any ideas about how to make this work, please chime in.
Ive asked many friends about this and they all seem to love the idea. Tablets are pretty cheap these days and this would be a great thing to have for relatives so they can all see new pics from family and loved ones with absolutely no effort at all!

[Rich D]

I really think you have a great idea there. I'm actually considering making one for my mom now.. Depending on the cost of the tablet, I have not checked into that yet..

Another thought would be, Since we're already using wifi You could have it to do a daily sync to a Dropbox.  This way you could help Mom edit out any unwanted pictures.  I mean just because the sister in law thinks mom needs 30 pics of little Johnny's first trip to the bathroom, mom might think differently.. :)

You could try searching this group as well, I have seen a few posts about people using a tablet as a picture viewer, I cannot recall what problems they had but it would most likely be good information for you..

Rich..

[Homey]

I'm not sure where you are but here in the UK, Gumtree is a great source of cheap tablets. It doesn't need to be anything fancy - even a resistive screen will be fine!
It doesn't need a great battery life as it will only be used on mains. All it needs is wifi and a half decent screen! There are a few in my area going for £40.

I love the Dropbox idea but my mum will definitely be confused and scared by using some app on the tablet but i'm sure than plenty of others won't be.

Only issue I can see is that most mail apps need the email to be selected before they download the attachment. Not sure how to get around this. Maybe a ftp client maybe better but I'm not sure, to be honest!

Searching the group now...

[Rich D]

> I love the Dropbox idea but my mum will definitely be confused and scared by using some app on the tablet but i'm sure than plenty of others won't be.

It still would be automated.  Tasker can sync with drop box and put the pics wherever they need to go..

[Rich D]

> Only issue I can see is that most mail apps need the email to be selected before they download the attachment. Not sure how to get around this. Maybe a ftp client maybe better but I'm not sure, to be honest!
>

I have never done it but i was under the impression you could have the files download without having to select them. I could be mistaken ..

[bdanders]

It might be doable by reading the gmail database using sqlite commands to get the id of the attachment and using that to build the download URL of the attachment. In the "messages" table of the database there is a label call "joinedAttachmentInfos" that includes an id number. That same number is part of the download link from the gmail browser window. It's a bit of work, but if you can't find a way to get an email client to automatically download attachments, you might be able to get it to work.

[bdanders]

On further inspection, I think I'm mistaken. I'll look some more to see if I can figure out what the identifier is, but so far it doesn't look good.

[TomL]

I would skip the email attachment method and use a cloud service like dropbox or google drive. There are apps like FolderSync that will download content from cloud accounts on a schedule, and then you can have Tasker do a slideshow with the local copy of the photos.

Trying to do it through email attachments is awkward to automate.  And with a cloud acct, you can remotely manage the current set of photos being shown.

Tom

[electricpete]

There may be easier ways, but you can certainly get  gmail attachments onto dropbox using free service IFTTT 

https://ifttt.com/recipes/39