I built an application that connects to Google Drive and lets users search through their files to get basic details like names, sizes, and file types. The authentication works fine for most people, but some users keep getting scope permission errors.
The problem happens when calling the about/get endpoint to retrieve drive information. Most users can access this without any issues, but a small group gets blocked.
I found some documentation suggesting that Google Workspace administrators might need to approve these permissions for their organization’s users. Since I don’t have much experience with Workspace settings, can anyone confirm if this is the likely cause? Is there a way to handle this programmatically or does it always require admin intervention?
yeah, workspace restrictions suck. dealt with this in my app too. what worked was better error messages - when scope fails, i tell users to contact it directly. also check if their email’s a company domain (not gmail) and warn them upfront about possible restrictions.
This is definitely a Google Workspace admin issue. I hit the exact same problem last year when deploying an app for a client. Workspace admins can set domain-wide policies that block third-party apps, even for basic scopes like drive.readonly. There’s no way to detect this programmatically before the API call fails. The Drive API returns a scope error, but it doesn’t tell you if it’s a user denial or admin restriction. I tried several workarounds but ended up creating clear docs for users on how to contact their IT department. What helped was better error handling that catches these scope errors and shows a user-friendly message telling them to check with their admin. Also consider requesting only the minimal scopes you actually need - some admins are more flexible with limited permissions.
I’ve hit this same issue with corporate users. The scope error happens when Workspace admins set up app access policies in their admin console - they’ll whitelist certain apps or block entire categories of third-party access. What worked for me was adding a pre-check before making the Drive API call. I validate the user’s domain against known problem patterns and show a warning if needed. Try hitting the discovery document endpoint first since it needs fewer permissions - if that fails, you know it’s probably an admin restriction, not your code. You can also offer different auth flows. Some orgs allow OAuth for Google accounts but block service account access, or the other way around. The about/get endpoint is especially touchy since it exposes org-level storage info that IT departments usually lock down hard.