To automatically email QR codes, start the flow on the New QR Code trigger, which fires within about 15 minutes of a code being created, and send the code's image in the message. Nobody downloads a file and nobody attaches it by hand.
This is the handover moment. A code gets made, and somebody who is not you needs the picture of it: a printer, a franchisee, a tenant, a sales rep, a client who asked for their own code on the sign.
Doing that by hand is 3 small jobs, and 3 small jobs done 40 times is an afternoon.
How do I automatically email QR codes?#
3 steps:
- QRFLOW.codes: New QR Code. Fires when a code is created in the account, however it was made: the website, another automation, the add-on or the API.
- A digest, if the volume is high. Optional, and covered below.
- Gmail: Send Email. Put the code's image in the body, or attach it.
The ready-made version is Send emails with images of new QR codes, which covers steps 1 and 3.
Note what the trigger does not care about. A code made by spreadsheet automation fires this one too. Chain them and a new row ends with a printer holding the artwork, with no human step in the middle.
How quickly does the email go out?#
The email goes out within about 15 minutes, not in seconds. New QR Code is a polling trigger, checked every 15 minutes on Zapier's free plan and faster on paid ones. The scan trigger is instant; this one is not.
That is the right trade for the job. Nobody is standing at a counter waiting. It does change 1 thing though: do not build a flow where a person clicks Save and then waits on screen for the message. They will click Save again.
When somebody truly needs the image the second it exists, have whatever made the code send it, using the QR code API in the same breath as the create call.
Should the image be inline or attached?#
Attach the image when it is going into artwork, and put it inline when somebody just needs to look at it.
Inline shows up in the body of the message. Best when the reader wants to see it, scan it with their own phone, and confirm it is right.
Attached is a file they can save and hand to a printer. Best for anything heading into print.
For print, send the file. A code dragged out of an email body is whatever size the mail client decided to render it at, and a code resized by a mail client is how you end up with something that will not scan from across a room. The size and quiet-zone rules are in the won't-scan help page.
If a printer is on the receiving end, name the size in the body too. "Print at 1.2 inches (3 cm) minimum" costs 9 words and saves a reprint.
Say which code it is#
The message has to name the code, because the picture cannot. Every QR code looks like every other QR code at a glance, and a recipient holding 3 of them has no way to tell the car park from the menu.
Put 3 things in the body:
- The code's Name, which is why the Name field is worth filling in when the code is made.
- The destination it currently points at.
- The short link, so a person can test it without a phone.
That third one matters more than it sounds. A recipient who can click the link and see the right page approves the artwork in about 1 minute. One who has to find a phone, scan a screen and squint leaves it until tomorrow.
This is not a QR code that opens an email#
Two jobs share nearly the same words and are not the same thing.
This page is about emailing the picture of a code to a person. The code itself can point anywhere.
A code that opens a blank email draft addressed to you, so somebody can scan a poster and write in, is a different thing and needs no automation at all. That one is a QR code for email, made in about 10 seconds.
If you came here wanting the second one, go there instead.
Questions people ask about automatically emailing QR codes#
Does this need a paid plan?#
Emailing codes automatically does not need a paid plan by itself. What a free account cannot do is hold more than 1 re-pointable code.
So a run of codes you intend to re-point later needs Premium at $4 a month or Business at $29. Only the live scan trigger needs Business.
Can it send to the person who caused the code to exist?#
The email can reach the person who caused the code to exist, as long as their address is somewhere in the chain. Pull it from the form, the spreadsheet row or the ticket that started things and map it into the mail step.
The New QR Code trigger carries no address on its own, because a code does not belong to a recipient.
Can it go through Outlook or our own mail server?#
Emailing codes can go through Outlook or your own mail server. Gmail is just the step in the template.
Any mail app in Zapier's directory works, and so does Email by Zapier for a plain send.
What if the code changes later?#
If the code changes later the picture stays the same, which is the whole point. A dynamic code's pattern is fixed while its destination moves.
Re-point it with the Update QR Code action and every copy already printed, emailed or stuck on a wall keeps working. The background is in static versus dynamic QR codes.
Can I email a batch rather than 1 at a time?#
Emailing a batch works through Digest by Zapier, placed between the trigger and the mail step. Codes collect through the day and go out as 1 message.
Kinder to a printer than 40 separate emails.
Setup is on the Zapier help page, the app sits in Zapier's directory, and 1 code by hand takes about 10 seconds in the free QR code generator.