I’m building a desktop text editor integration that connects to Google Drive for document management. The goal is to create a cross-platform solution that can read, edit, and save text files directly from Google Drive storage.
I’ve successfully completed the initial setup by registering my application and implementing OAuth2 authentication. The file listing functionality works perfectly using the Documents API. However, when I attempt to perform file insertion operations through the Google Drive API, I encounter this error message:
“The authenticated user has not installed the app with client id …”
From my research, it appears that publishing the application through Chrome Web Store might be required for Drive API access. This seems counterintuitive for a native desktop application. I’ve seen other projects like the FUSE filesystem implementation for Google Drive that work without web store distribution.
Is there a proper way to configure Google Drive API access for standalone desktop applications, or am I approaching this incorrectly?
This authentication error happens because your app credentials are set up for web apps, not desktop clients. When you create OAuth2 credentials in Google Cloud Console, pick “Desktop application” - not “Web application”. Web app credentials are way stricter about verification. I ran into the same thing building a file sync tool last year. Desktop credentials let you access the API directly without needing app store approval or domain verification. Double-check your client ID was made for desktop use - you can see this in your Google Cloud project’s credentials section. Also make sure you’re asking for the right Drive API scopes when authenticating. For file operations, you need at least https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file scope. The Documents API and Drive API have different permission requirements - that’s why listing works but insertion doesn’t.
Check if you skipped the app verification step - Google makes you manually add test users in the OAuth consent screen for unverified apps. Even desktop apps need this. If you didn’t add your own email as a test user, you’ll hit that client ID error. Same thing happened with my photo organizer. Go to APIs & Services > OAuth consent screen and add yourself under test users. Should work fine after that, no store approval needed.
Had this exact problem six months ago building a backup utility. The error happens because your OAuth consent screen is stuck in testing mode instead of production. You don’t need Chrome Web Store for desktop apps. Fix it in Google Cloud Console: set your OAuth consent screen to external users and push it to production. Double-check that your code’s scopes match exactly what’s in the console - tiny mismatches break auth. Also check your redirect URI setup. Desktop apps should use either the loopback IP or urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob depending on your OAuth flow. Make sure what you configured matches what your app actually uses during auth.