Is it possible to change a large file using google drive api, by uploading only changed part of the file, instead of entire file? I tried to find information about it in the API docs, but there's only support for continue uploading after connection reset. It seems to be an important feature.
No it's not possible. The Drive SDK treats files as atomic data blobs. It knows nothing about the format of content and hence what constitutes a change.
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I would like to add URL links into a web-based Google Drive folder. Searching online, it appears that this was once possible with files that ended in a .glink extension. I'm looking for documentation on the file format so that I can create them programmatically.
[EDIT] Why do I want to create .glink files? Because I want links (bookmarks, URLs) to be able to appear in my Google Drive web page and to be able to click on them an go to the page. Microsoft OneDrive supports this functionality.
GLINKS Files
The URL link file feature was available due to a workaround with Back Up and Sync before being deprecated with Drive for Desktop. The .glink seems to be patched and no longer available as it was also part of a third party tool no longer available. It seems it now only saves them as .URL and automatically gives it the icon for Google Docs, as it would take it as a simple file with text.
Checking the .url type file of Windows, when uploading to Drive it does not update as it should, even utilizing Drive for Desktop (as an alternative to sync data like back up and sync) the outcome is the one suggested above.
This is the main reason why there is no longer any documentation about the matter, due to this one not being an official feature and being also fully deleted, it can be confirm by the file type available when creating files with the Drive API:
https://developers.google.com/drive/api/guides/ref-export-formats
I would suggest to request a feature to allow this or to provide a new way to store URL links as before or report it to review if possible any references on how it used to work by submitting a feature request or checking the issue tracker about the matter:
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/new?component=191650&template=824106
You can also add the details of the previous threads or discussions about the GLINKS.
Lets say I have a web URL to a file on a cloud storage (like Dropbox, Google Drive, etc). How do I convert that to the corresponding file path on my pc? On Android? On iOS?
Assuming of course I have the utilities/apps installed locally.
EDIT: I interested in file name the reverse direction too. (I.e. when I have the local file path, what is the web path?)
EDIT 2: #Greg just made me realize that the problem with file name is much worse on Google Drive than on Dropbox.
And that is very bad. :-(
The reason? Google has good search capabilities on Drive and therefor I and many, many others have put their documents on Drive. However, once I found it I must locate it on my on computer/device. (If I want to edit a pdf for example.)
EDIT 3: #Dan McGrath kindly asked what parts remain unsolved.
Short answer: All. ;-)
Long answer: My actual use case, see below.
My actual use case is a Zotero web app. Zotero is a reference database where you store references to scientific articles, web pages, etc. The items stored in Zotero may include PDF files or - which I prefer - links to PDF files.
I just want to be able to easy access (read) this PDF files from any computer through the web app. And on my own computer I want to be able to edit the files with my local PDF editor. (Be it Android, Windows or whatever.)
By using a cloud storage I do not have to download/upload the files myself. The cloud storage takes care of that part.
For the "reverse" scenario, that is, you have a file and you want the Dropbox shared link, you can use this API endpoint, assuming you're connected to the account via the API:
https://www.dropbox.com/developers/core/docs#shares
My chrome app needs to save a file with human-readable or standard format such as SQLite (It should be readable outside Chrome).
Is there any API suitable for this purpose?
Some files with .localstorage extension (SQLite format) are in Chrome\User Data\Default\Local Storage folder. Is it possible to create such files by the app?
Edited: The app should not ask user for extra permission.
Thanks for your consideration.
chrome.fileSystem API is what you need.
You will need to ask the user at least once where to save the file, but then you can retain the entry to write again to the same file/folder.
There is no way around asking the user to "escape the sandbox".
You'll want to use the Quota Management API. This is per-origin storage, and you request specific amounts of quota.
It sounds like you also want your users to open the files directly? There's an HTML5 filesystem explorer Chrome app that you can use. It'll show you the files, and you can figure things out from their URLs (e.g. I'm currently using filesystem:http://localhost:8000/temporary/bar for a local experiment).
Or are you looking for something more user friendly? I think you have to use file save in that case, the same way Google Drive does.
I wonder how I could save a file on disk in a specific folder. Currently, I use HTML5 filesystem API to save and store my information inside the browser. But I'd like to save them on disk and in the same directory as the file that I edit. And without the prompt window.
Thank you in advance for your help!
Chrome Apps can do this via the chrome.fileSystem API. There is a huge amount of information on the web about how to use that API, including extensive documentation from Google. A quick web search should get you what you need.
(Chrome Apps have a lot of APIs not available to ordinary web apps.)
This would be considered a security issue. HTML5 only allows filesystems to be accessed from a protected area on your local drive controlled by the browser.
However, there are ways of storing data to this specified area temporarily or permanently.
window.webkitRequestFileSystem(window.TEMPORARY, 1024*1024, yourFile);
window.webkitRequestFileSystem(window.PERSISTENT , 1024*1024, yourFile);
If you remember, I'm trying to integrate Google Drive within our website, which is built on Elgg. Elgg already has its native file management system.
What we would like to do is to copy a file from Drive to our server, you know, kind of : Send to My Files. The problem is that I don't see any URL in the file metadata indicating where the file is physically stored.
I can see the copy function in Google Drive SDK but I don't think it allows to copy the file on our own server. Unless I've read it wrong.
Can you help me?
Thanks you.
If you are trying to save a file that has content stored in drive (e.g an image, pdf, etc.), the file's metadata should contain a downloadUrl that can be used to retrieve the file's content through an authorized GET request.
For Google Documents (Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, etc.), the data is stored in a private format that cannot be understand by third party applications. In this case, your app will have to use one of the exposed exportLinks to export the document into a format understood by your application.