Google Drive API file copy issue: 404 Bad Request error

Other Questions Google drive
1

I’m having trouble with the Google Drive API when trying to copy a file into a folder. I’m using Python to send a POST request to the API endpoint. Here’s what I’m doing:

  1. Setting up the URL with the file ID and access token
  2. Creating a request body with the parent folder ID
  3. Sending the request using urllib2

My code looks something like this:

url = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files/FILE_ID/copy?access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN'
body = {
    'parents': [{'id': 'PARENT_FOLDER_ID'}]
}
request = urllib2.Request(url, urllib.urlencode(body))
response = urllib2.urlopen(request).read()
print(response)

But I’m getting a 404 Bad Request error. What’s weird is that when I try the same thing in the Google API Playground, it works fine. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong? I’ve double-checked my file ID, access token, and parent folder ID, but I’m still stumped.

2

Having dealt with the Google Drive API, I can suggest a few things to troubleshoot your issue. First, ensure you’re using the latest API version (v3) as it tends to be more stable. Also, consider using the google-auth and google-auth-oauthlib libraries for handling authentication. Below is an example snippet that might work better:

from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials

creds = Credentials.from_authorized_user_file('token.json', ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file'])
service = build('drive', 'v3', credentials=creds)

file_metadata = {
    'name': 'Copied file',
    'parents': ['PARENT_FOLDER_ID']
}

file = service.files().copy(fileId='FILE_ID', body=file_metadata).execute()
print(file.get('id'))

This method uses the official Google client library, which takes care of many low-level details. It is also important to verify file permissions and ensure that your application has access rights to both the source file and the destination folder.

3

I’ve run into similar issues with the Google Drive API before, and it can be frustrating when things work in the playground but not in your code. One thing that helped me was switching to the requests library instead of urllib2. It’s more user-friendly and handles JSON better.

Here’s what worked for me:

import requests

url = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files/FILE_ID/copy'
headers = {'Authorization': 'Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN'}
body = {'parents': ['PARENT_FOLDER_ID']}

response = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=body)
print(response.json())

Notice I’m using the v3 API endpoint, which is more current. Also, make sure your access token is still valid - they expire pretty quickly. If you’re still getting errors, try printing out the full response content to see if there are any helpful error messages.

Lastly, double-check your scopes. You need the ‘https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file’ scope for this operation. Hope this helps!

4

hey there! i’ve had this issue too. make sure ur using the v3 API endpoint, it’s way better. also, double check ur access token - they expire quick. try this:\n\npython\nimport requests\n\nurl = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files/FILE_ID/copy'\nheaders = {'Authorization': 'Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN'}\nbody = {'parents': ['PARENT_FOLDER_ID']}\n\nresponse = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=body)\nprint(response.text)\n\n\nif it still doesn’t work, check the full response for more details. good luck!