I’m trying to embed private Google Drive documents in an iframe on my website, but I keep running into authentication issues. The files I want to display are not public, so the standard embed URLs don’t work.
Currently, when I try to load a private file in an iframe, Google always prompts users to sign in first. This creates a poor user experience since visitors have to authenticate just to view the content.
I’ve been looking into the Google Drive API to see if there’s a way to handle this programmatically. Is it possible to use API credentials or service accounts to display private Drive files in an embedded frame without requiring end users to log into their Google accounts?
The goal is to show document previews seamlessly within my web application while maintaining access control on the backend.
Here’s another option: convert your Drive files to publicly viewable but obscured links. Use the Drive API with service account credentials to download the private files, then store them temporarily on your server or cloud storage with unique URLs. You keep the iframe embedding while controlling access through your app logic. I’ve done this before and it works great for document previews. The downside? Extra storage costs and you’ll need to sync files when the original Drive docs get updated. Don’t forget to set up cleanup to delete temp files after a set time.
you could try google’s picker api with oauth tokens, but it’s way too complex for this. I’ve seen devs just take programmatic screenshots of the docs and show those images instead - much easier and no auth hassles, though you’ll lose the interactive features.
There’s no way around Google’s authentication for private Drive files in iframes - it’s intentional security. However, you can implement a workaround using a service account that accesses files server-side and serves the content through your application. Ensure the service account has access to your specific Drive files or folders. Your backend would fetch the content via the Drive API and render it in your app, essentially acting as a proxy. While this requires more effort since you’ll be handling the rendering instead of relying on Google’s viewer, it gives you complete control over the user experience while maintaining security.