She already tried something called , a Web service built expressly for the purpose of saving Gmail attachments to Dropbox, but balked at the $15 annual subscription fee.

I'm with you, Meg: I'm so cheap, I won't even tip my hat. Fortunately, there's a less-expensive (read: free) alternative that's actually even more versatile.

is a free service that can upload Gmail attachments to Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, or SkyDrive. Just install its browser plug-in (available for Chrome and Firefox), then link it with one or more of the aforementioned cloud services. (You'll need to grant permission, a one-time process.)

With that done, Attachments.me indexes all your attachments, then catalogs them for easy viewing and searching. With just a few clicks you can view, download, share, or archive an attachment.

Back in Gmail, just open any email that has an attachment, then click the blue Attachments.me button to upload it directly to your selected cloud account. You can also set up rules so that future emails from, say, a particular contact get automatically routed to Dropbox or wherever.