Hey everyone! I’m working on a project where I need to connect my Google Sheets document to an external web service. Basically, I want to be able to make HTTP requests to a REST API endpoint right from my spreadsheet.
I’ve been searching around but I’m not sure if this is even doable. Has anyone tried this before? I’m hoping there’s some built-in functionality or maybe a script I can use.
The goal is to fetch data from an online service and populate my sheet automatically. Any ideas or suggestions would be super helpful. Thanks in advance!
I do this all the time for data automation. Google Apps Script works great, but watch out for a few things. UrlFetchApp caps you at about 20,000 calls daily on regular accounts. Set up time-based triggers if you want it to run automatically - don’t rely on manual execution. Always add error handling because APIs go down more than you’d think. I learned that one the hard way. JSON parsing is easy with Utilities.jsonParse(), and you can dump results straight into specific sheet ranges. The script editor’s pretty clunky compared to modern IDEs, but it works.
You can definitely do this with Google Apps Script, but there’s a simpler option depending on what you need. For basic GET requests that return JSON or XML, try IMPORTDATA first. It’s limited but works for simple stuff without coding. For anything complex like POST requests or auth headers, you’ll need Apps Script. Pro tip I learned the hard way: use PropertiesService to store API keys securely - don’t hardcode them. Also, if you’re hitting the same endpoints a lot, set up basic caching with CacheService to avoid burning through API calls.
totally! u can use google apps script. just hit Extensions > Apps Script, then use UrlFetchApp.fetch() to make those API calls. it’s super easy to pull data from REST APIs, i’ve done it a bunch!