Is it possible to upload files to a cloud storage folder for which I have only the shared link with edit permissions? I want to do this from my application, from code, so I'm interested in an API. I've looked into SkyDrive, GoogleDrive and DropBox APIs but I can't find a solution for this scenario in the API references.
It's fine if I have to sign in through the API with a user account to be able to upload the files to the shared link but I need to allow any user that has the link to upload files to that location.
Have I missed anything in the above mentioned APIs or are there any other cloud storage services which supply a solution for my needs?
Yes it is possible.
These are the steps I just took to verify.
User-A creates a folder called 'shared folder'
User-A makes that folder publicly writeable
User-A passes the shared URL to User-B. The key part of the URL is the id=1bxxxxxxx
User-B goes to https://developers.google.com/drive/v2/reference/files/insert#try-it
... where he authenticates himself
... creates a request body containing parent: "id_from_step_3"
... Executes the upload
The result is that User-B has created a file in the folder 'shared folder'
I think you have got your self in a tangle.
Through a shared URL
When someone gives you a URL to view and indeed edit a file that is purely for that file. You can't therefore upload files that way. You can share folders however very easily. https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2494822?hl=en https://www.dropbox.com/help/19/en
As for the API directly I can't really help you I am affraid
Related
We would like access to a client’s folder within their Google Drive and all files under that folder. This can either be a folder we create from the app or a folder the client picks.
The first approach I tried was to create the folder from the app.
The problem is that I am only able to list the folder itself, but NONE of the content. https://developers.google.com/drive/api/v3/folder
The second approach was to use the Google Picker API. There the
client can choose which folder(s) to give us access to. However we
can only get access to the folder, and none of the children
folders/files. https://developers.google.com/picker/docs
This seemed like an easy and straightforward use case. But can’t seem to find a solution in their documentation, or maybe I don’t comprehend some of the logic. A solution would be a way to either propagate the permission to all the files included in the folder it get’s picked or created… or to have the picker select all the children.
My preference is to continue with the Recommended scope https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file . And it might be that the folder contains thousands of individual files multiple levels in, so it’s not a solution to manually pick the files. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
A possible solution for your situation...
Is to create the folder in a shared drive.
Therefore, even though new files are added/updated/removed you will still be able to see all the updates and retrieve the information needed as you will have constant access to this folder.
Another solution which is more cumbersome...
Is to ask for user's permission and to re-authorize the application each time they are using it so in the case a new file is added you will have access to it.
Reference
Drive API v3 shared drives;
Drive API v3 manage shared drives.
The first approach I tried was to create the folder from the app. The problem is that I am only able to list the folder itself, but NONE of the content. https://developers.google.com/drive/api/v3/folder
The issue is probably the scope you authorized the user with. If you authorized with read only access your not going to be able to create you need full drive access to do that.
If you are using https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file then you should create a folder with that and then create a file in the folder that i believe should work.
The second approach was to use the Google Picker API. There the client can choose which folder(s) to give us access to. However we can only get access to the folder, and none of the children folders/files. https://developers.google.com/picker/docs
There is no way to request access for a single folder or files. Its all or nothing really unless you use the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file scope which would only give you access to the files that your application created.
I'm googling and debugging for days now, and did not find a solution, how to access all files on google drive in the folder created by my application.
I'm using v3 API with non sensitive permission drive.file. This means I can create folders, and create and list files in it. But I only see (list) files which were created by the application. If the user copies some other file into the folder created by the application, it is invisible for the application, and I did not manage to set permission either on the web client, nor in the application.
I don't want to set all files permission to my app, since I don't want to access anything in the user's drive, just in my folder, but there I would like to see also files, the user copied there.
The files are settings/schema export of my application, which the user might move between users with different google account.
Is it possible? How could I list all files in the app data folder? Is there a way to share a file with an application on google drive? Can the user do it manually (like copy the file there, and then set some kind of permission to the application, so it can list/download that file)
Thanks!
I am building an app that functions as a markdown editor, and have Google authentication / login functioning. I have users asking if they can choose to have their documents save to their google drive rather than to my servers, which seems to work fine via the Google Drive v3 API, saved to the app data folder.
However, users are also able to generate a collaborator link for others to visit and which allows them to edit the files as co-owners. I would like to maintain this sharing capability with the Google Drive files, but this (very old) answer suggests that sharing in this way may not possible with files in appdata, because:
Appdata content is supposed to be exclusive to the application.
Does this mean that, as long as my users all access these files exclusively via the app, sharing appdata between users is possible? Or is the appdata folder exclusive to the application and the user? If so, is it at least possible to share editor access to google drive files created by my app but outside the appdata folder?
I'm imagining this process:
User1 creates a file in my app and then my app saves it to his Google Drive (preferably in appdata)
User1 generates a collaborator link via my app, gives it to User2
User2 visits the link which opens User1's file within my app, edits it
User2's edits are saved, and my app updates the original User1's file via the API
Question:
"Or is the appdata folder exclusive to the application and the user?"
Answer:
Yes, it is exclusive for your app on their Drive.
Notes:
Use the AppData folder for Application Data, not User Data.
If the file is created by your app, and you want to store it in the user's Drive, you can use the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file scope. You app will always have access to that file because it was created by it.
Keep in mind that if your app requires restricted scopes you will have to go through verification.
I'm trying to create script to download all files from another user shared folder in google drive using rest api. If i'm right, there are two variants:
Using drive.children.list, with folder ID
Using drive.files.list, with search query like 'FOLDER_ID in parents'
But both of this variants returning only files which were once opened by my google account in browser. If I open file in browser - this file will appear in results of API calls.
Folder is shared for anyone, who has link.
Where is the problem, how I can list all files in folder?
Since you did not give us any info about the SCOPE, I am wild-guessing that it may be your problem. You probably have FILE scope, instead of DRIVE.
Also, I would recommend to test these things with 'TryIt!' here. You can quickly modify both scopes and queries there.
Good Luck
This is a bug/quirk in the Drive API, though there is an easy workaround. If you call files.update with 'addParents=root' it'll add the shared folder under 'My Drive'. This has the effect of making the files part of your corpus and they'll appear in results.
I'm trying to integrate Dropbox into my web application in the following way:
Users can enter a Dropbox Share Link, i.e. a Dropbox folder that can be accessed by anyone, even without a dropbox account.
My application then grabs the images from the folder and displays them to all users of my application.
Now as far as I can tell, the Dropbox API doesn't allow this without sending the user through a full-blown OAuth process. But since the shared link is public anyway, I don't need (and don't want) access to the users Dropbox account.
Is there a way to access a shared link in a programmatic way (without parsing the DOM or similar hacks)? Maybe there is a query parameter on the shared link to retrieve the contents as JSON? If it exists, I didn't find any docs about it.
Surely I'm not the first one to try this, so please share your solutions!
No, there's no programmatic way to list folder contents from a share link. If you have a share link for a specific file, then you can convert the domain from www.dropbox.com to dl.dropboxusercontent.com, but this trick doesn't work on folders.