Lets any external tool trigger this automation by sending it JSON data — the one source you control from outside FileDrop, instead of FileDrop watching something on a timer.
Setup
- Connect your Google account if you haven’t already — even though the trigger itself doesn’t touch Google, actions like writing to a sheet still need the connection.
- Choose Incoming Webhook as the source. There’s nothing else to configure at this step.
- Save the automation. FileDrop generates:
- A webhook URL you send requests to.
- A secret for authentication.
- Configure your other tool (Zapier, a script, another app) to send a POST request with JSON to that URL, including the secret either as a
X-FileDrop-Webhook-Secretheader or as a Bearer token in theAuthorizationheader. Requests without a valid secret are rejected.
Trigger
There’s only one: Incoming webhook received. Any correctly authenticated request that reaches the URL is a trigger event — there’s no extra trigger configuration.
A few things worth knowing about how requests are handled:
- FileDrop accepts the request immediately and processes it in the background, so the sender doesn’t have to wait for your actions to finish.
- If your tool retries failed/duplicate deliveries, include an event ID (as a header like
X-FileDrop-Event-IdorIdempotency-Key, or a field in the JSON body) so FileDrop can recognize a repeat and avoid running your actions twice.
Conditions
Filter by any key from the JSON you’re sending — type its name directly, e.g. status or, for nested JSON, a dotted path like user.email. All the standard condition types are available.
Actions you can use
Notifications (Email, Slack, Google Chat, Webhook), writing to a sheet (New row, Copy row, Move row — the JSON data becomes the “row”), working with Google Docs (Create folder, Find/create Doc, Append Doc, Replace Doc), and Send invite.
See the actions guide for details. (Send file and Copy/move file need an actual Drive file, which a webhook doesn’t carry — reference a file by ID in the JSON and use Delete file with a File ID placeholder if you need to act on one.)
Ideas
- Bring another tool’s events into a sheet: any tool posts JSON, New row action writes
{payload.name},{payload.email},{triggered_at}as a new row. - Relay or reshape a webhook: receive from one tool, Webhook action forwards a restructured version to another endpoint.
- Filter before acting: condition on a JSON field (e.g.
statusequalsfailed), Slack action only for that case. - Debug/log the raw payload: New row action writing
{payload_json}into one column so you can see exactly what was sent.