Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

I have a Sharepoint subfolder with Excel spreadsheets.

I would like to create a Power Automate Flow that extracts the most recently modified Excel spreadsheet from this subfolder, then attach that spreadsheet to an Outlook (V2) connector.

I have already created a simple flow that extracts a file within a Sharepoint subfolder, then attaches that file to an email:

This is my Get File Content Using Path, showing it extracting a specific file:

This is my Outlook Send an Email (V2) step where that file is attached:

I am sharing this to show that I know how to attach a file to an email, and to show that I know how to find the file path for a Sharepoint file. This flow is part of my current work-around, which is to have a subfolder where I overwrite a file with the same username and upload the only file within that subfolder.

However, I would like help with a) extracting the most recently modified file from a subfolder with many files and b) attaching that file to an Outlook email. Here is my attempt at extracting the most recent file from a SHarepoint folder and attaching it to an Outlook email:

This is my List folder action:

This successfully returns information on both of the files in this subfolder:

{
    "statusCode": 200,
    "headers": { ....
    }, "body": [ {  "Id": "....xlsx",
    "Name": "....xlsx",
    "DisplayName": "...xlsx",
    "Path": "...xlsx",
    "LastModified": "2025-05-01T06:30:03Z",
    "Size": 43844,
    "MediaType": "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet",
    "IsFolder": false,
    "ETag": "\"{...},1\"",
    "FileLocator": "..."
} , {    "Id": "....xlsx",
    "Name": "....xlsx",
    "DisplayName": "...xlsx",
    "Path": "...xlsx",
    "LastModified": "2025-05-01T06:30:03Z",
    "Size": 43844,
    "MediaType": "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet",
    "IsFolder": false,
    "ETag": "\"{...},1\"",
    "FileLocator": "..."
}
    ]
}

Compose action

My compose action has this powerfx code in the Inputs:

first(reverse(sort(outputs('List_folder')?['body'], 'LastModified')))
This outputs information on the most recent file:
{
    "Id": "....xlsx",
    "Name": "....xlsx",
    "DisplayName": "...xlsx",
    "Path": "...xlsx",
    "LastModified": "2025-05-01T06:30:03Z",
    "Size": 43844,
    "MediaType": "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet",
    "IsFolder": false,
    "ETag": "\"{...},1\"",
    "FileLocator": "..."
}
 

This is my outlook (send an email (V2)) action:

This is th e code view of the Outlook action:

{
  "type": "OpenApiConnection",
  "inputs": {
    "parameters": {
      "emailMessage/To": "fakeemail@email.com",
      "emailMessage/Subject": "Subject text",
      "emailMessage/Body": "<p class=\"editor-paragraph\">Body text</p>",
      "emailMessage/Attachments": [
        {
          "Name": "my_file.xlsx",
          "ContentBytes": "@outputs('Compose')"
        }
      ],
      "emailMessage/Importance": "Normal"
    },
    "host": {
      "apiId": "/providers/Microsoft.PowerApps/apis/shared_office365",
      "connection": "shared_office365",
      "operationId": "SendEmailV2"
    }
  },
  "runAfter": {
    "Compose": [
      "Succeeded"
    ]
  }
}

The email successfully sends, but the attachment gives me an error message saying that the file format or file extension is not valid:
 

How would you recommend I change my flow so I can successfully attach the most recently uploaded file? I have used the Outlook Send an Email (V2) attachment many times to email files to myself but I seem to be struggling with extracting the most recent file from a subfolder and attaching that file to an Outlook email.

I would prefer to not use Premium connectors.

Categories:

Building flows

I think I figured out to do this. I would be open to anyone who has feedback or better suggestions.

Kudos to Tom Riha's article: How to get a specific value from a JSON in Power Automate

I also obtained the powerfx code I also first(reverse(sort(outputs(...)))) from somewhere on this forum, but searching for the code is not turning up results. Thank you to who posted it!

The first compose action has this code:

first(reverse(sort(outputs('List_files_in_folder')?['body'], 'LastModified')))

This extracts the JSON for the most recently modified file in the folder's listed files.

The compose action "Obtain most recent file path" has this code to extract the file path for the most recent file. I had the option to select this as a dynamic expression:
outputs('Compose_action:_Obtain_the_most_recent_file_in_folder')?['Path']
 

The compose action "Obtain most recent filename" has this code to extract the file name for the most recent file:

outputs('Compose_action:_Obtain_the_most_recent_file_in_folder')?['Name']
 
Next I used a Sharepoint action Get File Content. For the "File Path" blank, I am using the output from the second Compose action:
 
Finally I used an Outlook Send an email (V2) action. The File Content is the output of the Get file content using extracted path action. The Name of the file will be the output of the third compose action, which extracts the file name.