Is there a way to get files marked for public viewing in Google Drive using the API without authentication?
I know about the "downloadUrl" property, but it is a temporary URL with no reference to how long it lasts. I would like to use the API directly to get the files, and I think I read somewhere someone alluding to the possibility of calls to the API that are not authenticated for retrieving public files.
Edit: The webContentLink field of a File resource now provides this.
This is a known issue, and a big deal which we are working to fix. Currently, some sort of authentication is required, even for public files, which I think is not ideal. Sorry about that.
Related
I'm searching for a little while and I can't find what I'm looking for, so it may be a good idea to ask it here.
Is there a way to obtain, by API, for a specific file, the name of the last user (and timestamp) who accessed a file?
Goal: to write to script to know who access what on my drive.
Unfortunately, what you want cannot be achieved. The Drive Activity API is used only for retrieving the activity on the specified file. You can gather the users who have view access but not the ones who have actually viewed the file.
The action object from the Drive Activity API is represented by the action detail. For a document at the moment, the action details are the following: create, edit, move, rename, delete, restore, permissionChange, comment, dlpChange, reference, settingsChange. Therefore, taking these into account as well, you cannot see who viewed a file.
Since the option of seeing the actual viewers of a file is still a relatively new feature in the UI, the option for the API does not yet exist.
What you can do instead is to file a feature request on Issue Tracker by accessing this link here.
Reference
Drive Activity API
You can use the Drive Activity API.
I need to get a shareable link to google drive photos and files. Do I need to know this method can be used for that or what can be used for that?
You can see the defined use for setRelay in Picker Class Reference:
PickerBuilder.setRelayUrl(string) - Set the relay URL, used for gadgets.rpc.
Picker.setRelayUrl(string) Specify a relay URL to circumvent cross-domain issues.
However to answer your question, you might be looking for webViewLink:
A link only available on public folders for viewing their static web
assets (HTML, CSS, JS, etc) via Google Drive's Website Hosting.
This property is returned from a successful API call like files.get or files.list.
I have a publicly shared OneDrive folder with some various sub-folders and files. I.e. I have shared it via a link, so anyone with this link can access them.
Is there a way I can access these files from either client-side JavaScript or some server-side code via a REST API of some sort? Without having to use any sort of user-specific credentials?
What I've been trying
I've been looking at the Accessing Shared Content page, and it looks like what I want, but can't figure out how to use it.
I've taken something that looks like an id from the shared URL, which looks to be a long hexadecimal number (which seems to be an id pointing at me?), an !, and then a number (which I assume has to do with the shared resource).
I've then tried to stick it in this URL:
https://api.onedrive.com/v1.0/shares/<id>/root?expand=children
But I get back a 400 Bad Request, so something isn't quite right...
I'm thinking maybe some sort of authentication is missing, but since the shared files are public, I don't users to have to login with their credentials, and can't of course use my own in code.
I've tried to register an app, where I get an application id (guid) and can generate Passwords and Key-Pairs. Was hoping maybe I could use that, but don't see in the API how and where to actually use those...
Goal
The shared folder contains sheet music for a choir, that I'm responsible for keeping updated (and OneDrive syncing is super handy here).
Some members aren't very computer savvy, so I'd like to make seeing and downloading these files as easy as possible. The shared link with a "go here to this other strange site and find the files there"-text sort of works, but I would much rather like to list the files directly in a member-only area of our website. Basically just "here are the files, click on one to download it".
Yes, you can use the REST API to access the contents of a folder.
The API is the one you mentioned, the shares API. However, it sounds like you are perhaps using the wrong ID.
The most straightforward way to do this is to follow the instructions to encode the actual sharing URL into a token. This way you create a base64 encoded version of the sharing link, append a "u!" to the front of that string, and then make the exact call you already mentioned. You'll get back a list of the files in the shared folder and you can go from there.
Here's an example of this:
Here's a sharing link to a folder in OneDrive with some photos in it.
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtuAM_NacwVahiFpuMGS_BiQCwWu
To convert this URL into the API, you first base64 encode the URL and append u!
u!aHR0cHM6Ly8xZHJ2Lm1zL2YvcyFBdHVBTV9OYWN3VmFoaUZwdU1HU19CaVFDd1d1
Now you can use this URL as the sharing token, and expand children and thumbnails:
https://api.onedrive.com/v1.0/shares/u!aHR0cHM6Ly8xZHJ2Lm1zL2YvcyFBdHVBTV9OYWN3VmFoaUZwdU1HU19CaVFDd1d1/root?expand=children
Clicking on this bottom link should give you the JSON response, which includes the shared folder and the children inside the folder.
I updated by Google Drive SDK references to 1.70 recently and updated all of my authentication code from using IAuthorizationState and the NativeApplicationClient to using UserCredentials, Drive.Auth.Store, and a DriveService object consistent with Google's "supported" method.
Everything working with my DriveService is working great. I can upload files, list files, create files and folders. Now I'm trying to figure out how to perform the simple act of downloading files by ID and I can't determine how I can leverage my new authentication code to support downloading. The SDK examples are referencing IAuthenticator but I'm not sure if that is a legacy object and my current project can't naturally reference it (missing a reference or perhaps isn't in 1.70).
I recognize that the Drive SDK may not actually have a method of downloading a file, but I'm very confused about how I can use my clean, new authentication store (Drive.Auth.Store) which has everything I should need to authenticate with the downloading action.
A point in the right direction would be most helpful! Thanks in advance for your help.
i have been going around in circles here and have totally confused myself. I need some help.
I am (trying to) writing an application for a client that in concept is simple. he want a google write document with a button. the google drive account has several folders, each shared with several people. when he drops a new file in one of the folders, he wants to be able to open this write file, this file is the template for his email. he clicks the button, the system calls the changes service in the Google Drive SDK https://developers.google.com/drive/manage-changes, gets the list of files that have been added since the last time it was checked, then pull the list of people that the file has been shared with, and use the write file as a template to send that list of people an email saying their file is ready.
SO, easy enough, right?
I started by looking at the built in functions in the Google App Script API. I found this method, https://developers.google.com/apps-script/class_docslist#find in the DocsList class. problem is the description for the query simply says "the query string". So at first i tried the Drive SDK query parameters, which are
var files = DocsList.find("modifiedDate > 2012-12-20T12:00:00-08:00.");
it didn't work. that leads me to believe it is a simple full text search on the content. Thats not good enough.
That lead me into trying to call a Drive SDK method from within an App Script application. Great, we need an OLap 2 authentication. easy enough. found the objects in the script reference and hit my wall.
Client ID and Client Secret.
you see, when i create what this really is, a service account, the olap control in apps script doesn't know how to handle the encrypted json and pass it back and forth. Then when i tried to create and use an installed applications key, i get authentication errors because the controls again, don't know what to do with the workflow. and finally, when i try to create a web app key, i can't because i don't have the site host name or redirect URI. And i can't use the application key ability because since im working with files OLap 2 is required.
i used the anonymous olap for a while, but hit the limit of anonymous calls per day in the effort of trying to figure out the code a bit, thats not going to work because the guy is going to be pushing this button constantly thru the day.
i have been pounding my head on the desk over this for 5 hours now. i need some help here, can anyone give me a direction to go?
PS, yes, i know i can use the database controls and load the entire list of files into memory and compare it to the list of files in the database. problem being, we are talking tens of thousands of files. bad idea.
I wouldn't use DocsList anymore - DriveApp is supposed to be a more reliable replacement. Some of the commands have changed, so instead of find, use searchFiles. This should work more effectively (they even use a query like yours as an example).