I’m trying to implement real-time notifications from Google Drive in my UWP application but I’m completely lost on where to start. I know I need to create some kind of listener service that can handle incoming webhook calls from Google’s servers, but the documentation seems pretty sparse on this topic.
What are the basic steps I need to follow to get this working? Do I need to set up a web server endpoint? How does the authentication work for these push notifications? Any guidance from developers who have successfully implemented this would be really helpful.
I’ve been searching for tutorials or examples but haven’t found anything that clearly explains the process for UWP apps specifically.
Getting Google Drive API webhooks working in UWP is tricky since UWP apps can’t receive HTTP callbacks directly - security restrictions block this. You’ll need to set up a separate web service as a middleman.
Create a web API endpoint that catches the webhook notifications from Google Drive. Then your UWP app either polls this service regularly or uses SignalR for real-time updates.
Register your webhook URL using the watch() method on files or changes resources. Handle authentication with service account credentials on the server side, not in the UWP app. Make sure your webhook endpoint can deal with Google’s initial verification challenge too. Yeah, it needs a server component, but it’s the most reliable way I’ve found to get notifications working in UWP.
Yeah, UWP apps can’t handle webhooks directly - super annoying. I solved this by using Azure Functions as the webhook receiver. It’s cheap and works great with Google Drive notifications. Your UWP app connects through websockets or just polls the Azure storage. Make sure you validate Google’s webhook signature though, otherwise you’ll get flooded with spam requests.
Had this exact problem last year. I skipped Azure Functions and went with a lightweight Node.js server on Heroku’s free tier to catch webhooks instead. Here’s what killed me - Google needs your webhook to respond with a 200 status within 10 seconds or it marks your channel as failed. My UWP app connects via WebSocket to the Node.js server and gets instant updates when files change. Pro tip: renew your notification channels before they expire. Google only keeps them active for a limited time, so you’ll need to call the watch method again to refresh them.