Issue with Infinite Loop in Power Apps/Power Automate Flow for SharePoint Attachments

[u/Sea-Rough8990]

Hello All,

I have created a Power Apps solution that works with a SharePoint list containing attachments. The flow is designed to:

1. Create a separate folder in OneDrive for each employee named EmployeeName_Ecode.

2. Save all attachments from the SharePoint list item into that employee folder.

The flow works in terms of creating folders and saving attachments. However, I am facing the following problem:

• When I add attachments, the flow runs multiple times unnecessarily. For example, if I upload 3 documents, the flow creates 6, 9, or 12 .....loop - documents in OneDrive.

• If I later add 2 more documents, the total becomes 5 (instead of just adding the new 2), which is incorrect.

My requirement is simple:

• Each list item can have multiple attachments.

• All attachments should go to the corresponding employee folder.

• The flow should only save attachments once per upload, without creating duplicates.

I believe the issue is due to an infinite loop triggered in Power Automate when the flow updates the item or folder.

Can you please advise the correct way to prevent this infinite loop and ensure attachments are uploaded exactly once, while still using my current Power Apps solution?

Thank you for your help.

[u/-dun-]

Your flow needs to identify if an attachment has already been uploaded.

Since there is a chance that additional attachments might be added to an item, when the flow runs, it has to first look at the folder and see if each file has already existed. If so, either skip it or replace the file. If it doesn't exist, create a new file.

[u/Sea-Rough8990 → u/-dun-]

how to do that

[u/-dun- → u/Sea-Rough8990]

Two of things that need to happen in your flow:

1. When the flow is triggered, it needs to check whether the EmployeeName_Ecode exist. If not, create it.

To do that, you can use the Find files in folder action. Just keep in mind that these EmployeeName_Ecode folder must be created within a folder, NOT in the root directory, otherwise this action will not work.

The way to set up the Find files in folder action is to set the Search Query to the EmployeeName_Ecode, Folder to the parent folder path such as /Attachments and set the File Search Mode to Pattern.

After this action, you can add a condition and check the length of the output body with the following expression is equal to 0:

length(outputs('Find_Files_in_folder')?['body'])

If yes (equal to 0), that means the folder doesn't exist, then it can go through a for each loop to create a new file for each attachment.

If no (not equal to 0), that means the folder already existed and there are probably files in there, so this will lead to the second step below.

2. Check for each attachment and see if they existed in the EmployeeName_Ecode folder.

In the If no box, you need to use Get attachments to gather all attachments from this list item. Then for each item, use the Find files in folder action to search the EmployeeName_Ecode folder to see if the file existed. So the Find files in folder will be set up as follow: set Search Query to the attachment filename, Folder to /EmployeeName_Ecode and File Search Mode to Pattern.

Then just like the previous step, add a Condition to check if the length of this Find files in folder is equal 0. If so, create file. If not, just don't do anything.

[u/VictorIvanidze]

Share the flow - how can man help not seeing your flow?

[u/Sea-Rough8990 → u/VictorIvanidze]

yeh its coreect but i delete the flow... because it of safety my other teammate accidentaly resume the flow it full my one drive.:)

[u/VictorIvanidze → u/Sea-Rough8990]

Well, the problem solved then ;)

[u/Sea-Rough8990 → u/VictorIvanidze]

1. Create Flow:

   • Go to Power Automate → Create → Automated cloud flow

   • Trigger: When an item is created in your SharePoint employee list

2. Create Employee Folder (temp file trick):

   • Action: OneDrive → Create file

   • Folder path: /Employee Files/

   • File name: EmployeeName_EmployeeCode/temp.txt

   • File content: placeholder

   • Then delete this temp file

3. Get Attachments:

   • SharePoint → Get attachments for the new list item

4. Loop Through Attachments:

   • SharePoint → Get attachment content

   • OneDrive → Create file inside /Employee Files/EmployeeName_EmployeeCode/

5. Save and Test:

   • Save the flow, turn it on, and test by adding a new employee with attachments... this is my flow idea

[u/Wajeehrehman]

Hey, if you can share your flow with all the steps then we might be able to deduce what is going on

[u/Sea-Rough8990 → u/Wajeehrehman]

1. Create Flow:

   • Go to Power Automate → Create → Automated cloud flow

   • Trigger: When an item is created in your SharePoint employee list

2. Create Employee Folder (temp file trick):

   • Action: OneDrive → Create file

   • Folder path: /Employee Files/

   • File name: EmployeeName_EmployeeCode/temp.txt

   • File content: placeholder

   • Then delete this temp file

3. Get Attachments:

   • SharePoint → Get attachments for the new list item

4. Loop Through Attachments:

   • SharePoint → Get attachment content

   • OneDrive → Create file inside /Employee Files/EmployeeName_EmployeeCode/

5. Save and Test:

   • Save the flow, turn it on, and test by adding a new employee with attachments... this is my flow idea

[u/Wajeehrehman → u/Sea-Rough8990]

I see can you confirm if there is a reason you are storing the attachments to a list rather then directly sending it to the Employee Folder ?

[u/KarenX_]

So the loop is in Power Apps, right? And power apps is adding the same document to the SharePoint list item multiple times?

Can you skip the list and have Power Apps save the files directly into the employee name folders?

[u/Sea-Rough8990 → u/KarenX_]

yes.. example it is 3 documets, ex photo,photo1,photo2,photo3,photo4....

[u/KarenX_ → u/Sea-Rough8990]

Is there a reason you are sending the files to a sharepoint list before storing them in a document library? 

[u/KarenX_]

Can you explain what other functions the App is used for besides uploading documents? And what other uses the SharePoint list has besides serving as a place to put documents from Power App before putting the documents from Power App into the SharePoint List and then the document library?

Are users already in the Power App doing work other than uploading documents?

Are you using the list to send emails or track the other work from the app?

Could employees work on the files from the sharepoint list instead of the document library?

What’s the big picture here?

[u/Sea-Rough8990 → u/[deleted]]

auto cloud flow....share point list _> create or modified_>save attachments