Relay.app Is Shutting Down: A Better Alternative for Email-Based Workflows

If you built automations with Relay.app, it’s time to find a new home for them.

Relay.app announced that it is shutting down in 2026. Free accounts lost access on August 15, while paid customers can continue using Relay until September 14, 2026. Relay has also provided users with an export tool for their workflows, run history, and tables.

For teams that relied on Relay to connect dozens of applications and run complex background automations, platforms such as Zapier, Make, or n8n may be the most direct replacement.

But if you were using Relay primarily to connect email with the rest of your work, there’s another option.

Instead of rebuilding the same workflows in another automation platform, InFiler brings those integrations directly into Outlook.

And for many email-driven workflows, that can be a much simpler model.

Why Relay.app users are looking for an alternative

Relay.app positioned itself as an easy-to-use workflow automation platform that could connect apps and automate repetitive work.

Every Relay workflow started with a trigger—for example, receiving an email, changing a record in Salesforce, or booking a meeting in Calendly—and could then perform actions across connected applications.

Relay also supported more sophisticated workflows involving AI and human input. Users could insert approvals, tasks, data-entry steps, and path selections into a workflow instead of automating every decision blindly.

That made Relay particularly useful for workflows such as:

• receiving an email and recording information elsewhere;
• updating a CRM based on a new message;
• creating tasks from incoming requests;
• transferring information between business applications;
• generating or sending follow-up emails;
• coordinating work across email, databases and project-management tools.

Relay explicitly targeted business users who wanted automation without having to understand APIs, JSON or code, while still supporting more advanced tools such as webhooks and HTTP requests.

With Relay shutting down, those workflows now need somewhere else to go.

But before recreating them step-for-step in another automation builder, it’s worth asking a more fundamental question: Why did the workflow need a separate automation platform in the first place?

If the workflow starts with an email, keep the workflow in your inbox

A huge amount of administrative work starts with email.

A client sends you something. A prospect asks a question. A colleague sends a document. Someone approves a proposal. A customer confirms the next step.

The email itself might take 30 seconds to read. What follows can take much longer.

You might need to:

• save the email or attachment;
• update a CRM;
• create a task;
• add information to Airtable;
• update a matter or project;
• log time;
• move a document;
• notify someone else;
• or trigger another workflow.

This is the hidden admin workflow behind email.

Traditional automation platforms solve it by taking you outside your inbox and asking you to build a workflow: Trigger → logic → action → action → action.

InFiler takes a different approach. It puts the actions where the work is already happening: inside Outlook.

InFiler: a Relay.app alternative built around email

InFiler is an Outlook add-in that connects your inbox to the applications you already use.

Instead of switching between Outlook, your CRM, your project-management system, your database, and multiple app-specific add-ins, InFiler gives you one place to take action on the information contained in an email.

From the email you’re already working on, you can turn inbox activity into structured work across your connected systems.

That means the workflow becomes: Read email → choose what needs to happen → InFiler handles the admin work. No separate automation dashboard required.

For teams whose Relay workflows were largely built around email, this is an important distinction.

Relay.app vs. InFiler

Relay was powerful because it connected applications. InFiler asks what happens when those connections are available at the point where you actually need them.

Why this can be better than rebuilding your Relay workflows

1. You don't need to automate everything

One of the traps of workflow automation is assuming that every workflow needs to run autonomously.

Email often contains nuance. You know that this message needs to become a task. That attachment belongs in a client file. This conversation should update the CRM. Another email requires no action at all.

You already make those decisions while reading the email. Creating an elaborate trigger and filtering system to reproduce that judgment can sometimes add more complexity than it removes.

InFiler lets you keep the human decision while automating the administrative work that comes after it. You decide what needs to happen. InFiler handles the moving of information.

2. Your email already contains the context

Most business systems contain only part of the picture. Your CRM has the contact. Your project-management system has the task. Your document system has the file. Your database has the record.

But the email often contains the reason any of those things need updating.

Traditional automations move pieces of that context between applications. InFiler starts from the context itself. Because you're working directly from the email, you can decide what information matters before sending it to another system.

3. One integration layer instead of multiple Outlook add-ins

Many applications offer their own Outlook integrations. Your CRM might have one. Your file-storage platform might have another. Your task manager might have another.

Each one solves its own small part of the workflow.

InFiler centralizes those connections into one add-in, giving you a consistent way to interact with multiple applications without constantly jumping between different extensions and interfaces.

The value isn't simply having more integrations. It's having your integrations work together around the same email context.

4. Less context switching

The problem with inbox administration isn't only the number of clicks. It's the constant switching.

Outlook → CRM → Outlook → task manager → Outlook → document system → Outlook.

Every switch interrupts the work you're actually trying to complete. InFiler is designed to collapse those administrative steps into the inbox so that processing an email doesn't turn into a tour through the rest of your software stack.

What kinds of Relay.app workflows can move to InFiler?

InFiler is particularly relevant if you were using Relay for workflows resembling:

Email → CRM

An email arrives from a prospect or client. Instead of manually opening your CRM and finding the right record, use InFiler to move the relevant information from the email into the connected system.

Email → Task

A message requires follow-up. Create the work from the email rather than switching into another application and recreating the context manually.

Email → Database

Information contained in an email needs to be recorded in Airtable or another structured system. Send it where it belongs without copying and pasting between windows.

Email → File or record

An email or attachment belongs with a particular matter, account, project, or record. File it from Outlook while the context is still in front of you.

Email → Multiple systems

One message might require more than one administrative action. The advantage of centralizing your applications in one add-in is that your workflow doesn't have to stop at a single app.

That's particularly useful for professional-services teams, operations teams, consultants and other businesses where email remains the interface through which a large percentage of work arrives.

Is InFiler a complete replacement for Relay.app?

Not for every Relay workflow—and that's intentional.

If you were using Relay to run fully autonomous workflows between applications with no connection to email, a general-purpose automation platform such as Zapier, Make or n8n will probably be a closer replacement.

InFiler is designed for a different problem: the work that happens after you receive or send an email.

If Relay was acting as the bridge between your inbox and the rest of your software stack, that's where InFiler becomes particularly compelling. Rather than rebuilding an external workflow engine, you can move the integration layer into Outlook itself.

What Relay.app users should do before September 14

If you're still on a paid Relay account, don't wait until the shutdown date to begin migrating.

Relay has made an export tool available for important workspace data, including workflows, run history, and tables.

As you review those workflows, don't automatically recreate every step. Instead, categorize them.

• Fully automated app-to-app workflow? Move it to a general automation platform.
• Workflow triggered by or centered around an email? Ask whether the workflow would be simpler if you could perform those actions directly from Outlook.

That migration exercise is also an opportunity to remove automations that were compensating for fragmented software rather than genuinely saving work.

The next generation of email automation shouldn't require leaving your email

Relay.app helped make workflow automation significantly more approachable. Its shutdown doesn't change the underlying problem it was solving: businesses still lose enormous amounts of time moving information manually between applications.

But rebuilding the same workflows in another automation platform isn't always the only answer.

For email-driven work, the better solution may be to eliminate the gap between reading the message and doing something with the information inside it.

That's what InFiler is built for.

InFiler connects Outlook to the tools where your work actually lives, so you can file, create, update and trigger actions without leaving your inbox.

If Relay.app was helping you move information from email into the rest of your stack, you don't necessarily need another Relay. You may just need a better inbox.

Frequently asked questions

Filed under Automations. Learn more about the apps InFiler connects.