Export size limit exceeded error when downloading large Google Docs via API

Other Questions Google drive
1

I’m trying to download a Google Document using the Drive API export endpoint but keep running into issues with larger files. My document is around 5MB in size and whenever I attempt to export it, I get back an error response.

The error looks like this:

{
  "error": {
    "errors": [
      {
        "domain": "global",
        "reason": "exportSizeLimitExceeded",
        "message": "This file is too large to be exported."
      }
    ],
    "code": 403,
    "message": "This file is too large to be exported."
  }
}

Does anyone know a workaround for this limitation? Maybe there’s a different approach to handle larger documents or some way to bypass this restriction?

2

Google’s export API has undocumented hard limits, but there’s a workaround using batch processing through the Drive API. Don’t try exporting the whole document at once - break it into smaller chunks instead. I use the files.get endpoint with range headers to download portions sequentially. You’ll need retry logic and proper handling of partial content responses. It’s slower but works reliably for documents over 10MB (where the export limit usually kicks in). You can also use Google Apps Script as a middleman - it’s got higher quotas and handles larger docs better.

3

Had this exact issue about six months ago with corporate docs that hit Google’s export limits. Switched to the Drive API’s files.get method with alt=media parameter instead of the export endpoint - way more reliable. It downloads the original document format instead of converting it, so you completely bypass those export size restrictions. You’ll get the native .docx file instead of whatever format you wanted, but just convert it locally with python-docx or whatever library works in your language. Performance is actually better since you’re not making Google’s servers do the conversion work. Just make sure your app can handle the bigger downloads and set your timeouts properly.

4

yeah, this limitation’s super annoying. i broke the document into smaller chunks - copied sections into separate docs, then exported those individually. not ideal, but it works when you need that specific format. if it’s your own document, try google takeout - sometimes handles larger files better.