How to Send an Outlook Email With Attachments in Power Automate Desktop

A regional sales manager I work with emails the same two Excel reports to her leadership team every Monday morning. The files are generated on her PC by another desktop flow, so the natural next step was to have Power Automate Desktop send them too, through her own Outlook, from her own address.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to send an email with one attachment and with several attachments using Power Automate Desktop and Outlook, which settings matter, and how to fix the errors people run into most.

Quick answer: Add Launch Outlook, then Send email message through Outlook. Choose your Account, fill in To, Subject and Body, and put the file path (or a list of files) in Attachment(s). Finish with Close Outlook. These actions need the classic Outlook desktop app; they don’t work with the new Outlook for Windows.

Before you start

• Classic Outlook must be installed, signed in and set up with a profile on the PC that runs the flow. The Outlook actions don’t support the new Outlook for Windows, so if the New Outlook toggle is on, switch it off.
• Know the full path of each file, such as C:\Reports\Project Details 2026.xlsx. If your Desktop is synced with OneDrive, its path is something like C:\Users\you\OneDrive - Contoso\Desktop, not C:\Users\you\Desktop.
• If Outlook isn’t an option, use Send email (SMTP) or Send Exchange email message in desktop flows, or Send an email (V2) in a cloud flow.

Send an email with one attachment

Step 1: Launch Outlook

Create a desktop flow, search the Actions pane for Outlook, and add Launch Outlook. It opens Outlook, or connects to it if it’s already open, and saves the connection in %OutlookInstance%:

Step 2: Store the file path

Add Set variable, name it ProjectFile, and enter the full path, such as C:\Reports\Project Details 2026.xlsx. You can also pick the file with Get files in folder, covered below.

Step 3: Send the email

Add Send email message through Outlook and set:

• Outlook instance: %OutlookInstance% (filled in for you).
• Account: the account name as it appears in Outlook’s folder pane, usually your email address.
• Send email from: Account. Choose Other mailbox only to send from a shared mailbox or another mailbox you have Send As or Send on Behalf permission for, and then enter that address in Send from.
• To, and optionally CC and BCC: separate several addresses with semicolons.
• Subject and Body: turn on Body is HTML if you want formatting such as bold text or a table.
• Attachment(s): select {x} and choose %ProjectFile%.

A simple body works well:

Hi Patti,

Please find this week's project details attached.

Thanks,
Johanna

Step 4: Close Outlook

Add Close Outlook with %OutlookInstance%. It closes the Outlook window that Launch Outlook opened:

Save and run the flow. The recipient gets the email with the file attached. If messages sit in the Outbox instead of sending, add a short Wait (for example 10 seconds) before Close Outlook so Outlook has time to send them.

Send several attachments

Attachment(s) accepts a list of files, so the flow is the same; you only need to build the list. There are three ways.

Option 1: Build a list

Store each path in a variable with Set variable, for example SalesData and SalesProfitLoss. Then add Create new list and rename its variable to FileList:

Add Add item to list for each file, with the path variable in Add item and %FileList% in Into list:

In Send email message through Outlook, put %FileList% in Attachment(s). Then close Outlook as before:

Option 2: Type the paths

For a fixed set of files, type them directly in Attachment(s), each in double quotes and separated by a space:

"C:\Reports\Sales Data 2026.xlsx" "C:\Reports\Sales Profit and Loss 2026.xlsx"

Option 3: Attach every file in a folder

For a folder of reports, use Get files in folder with a filter such as *.xlsx. It returns a list, %Files%, that you can put straight into Attachment(s). This is the version I set up for the sales manager, because the report names change every week.

Troubleshooting

• “Failed to launch Outlook” or the actions don’t respond: you’re probably on the new Outlook for Windows. Switch back to classic Outlook, and make sure a profile is set up for the user running the flow.
• “Failed to find Outlook account”: the Account value doesn’t match the account name in Outlook exactly. Copy it from the folder pane.
• “Attachment not found”: the path is wrong, the file was moved, or the Desktop is redirected to OneDrive. Use the full path, and put quotes around paths with spaces when there’s more than one file.
• The email stays in the Outbox: add a Wait before Close Outlook, or leave Outlook open.
• The email comes from the wrong address: check Send email from. Use Account for your own mailbox and Other mailbox only for a shared mailbox.

To send formatted content, such as a table, in the body instead of an attachment, build it with the Create HTML content action and turn on Body is HTML. See Power Automate Desktop text actions for that and other text actions.

These Power Automate Desktop tutorials may help next:

• Power Automate Desktop Text Actions [With Examples]
• Extract Data from an Excel using Power Automate Desktop
• Retrieve Excel Column Values Into List Using Power Automate Desktop
• How to Upload File in SharePoint Using Power Automate Desktop?
• Variables in Power Automate Desktop
• Get Substring from String in Power Automate Desktop

Frequently Asked Questions