I’m working on an Android app and need to implement a feature that lets users upload documents to Google Drive and then share them with others. I’ve been looking through the documentation but I’m getting confused about the best approach.
What I want to do is take a document file from the user’s device and upload it to their Google Drive account. After that, I need to set sharing permissions so other people can view or edit the document.
Can someone show me the right way to do this? I’m particularly interested in seeing example code that demonstrates:
- Setting up the Google Drive API connection
- Uploading a file to Drive
- Configuring sharing settings
I’ve tried a few different approaches but keep running into authentication issues. Any working examples would be really helpful. Thanks!
Been there! The Google Drive quickstart guide is solid once you get through the initial setup mess. Double-check your gradle dependencies - I always forget the auth library. Watch your scope permissions too - you need both drive.file and drive.metadata for sharing. Test on a real device if you can since the emulator gets flaky with Google auth.
Authentication trips up everyone when they start with Google Drive API. I wasted weeks on this same problem in my last project. You need to get your OAuth2 credentials set up right in Google Cloud Console and request the correct scopes - that’s where most people mess up. For uploads, use Drive API v3 with files.create. Set the right MIME type and handle multipart uploads correctly. Trust me, use the Google API Client Library for Android instead of raw HTTP requests - it’ll save you tons of headaches. For sharing, you’ve got two options. Either set permissions during upload using the ‘parents’ parameter if you’re uploading to a shared folder, or use permissions.create after the fact. The second way gives you better control over who sees what and their permission levels. Here’s what blindsided me: these operations are async. Don’t block your UI thread during uploads, especially with big files. Learn from my mistakes!
Had the same issues last year. Got it working by setting up GoogleSignInOptions with Drive scope properly. If you’re using service accounts, double-check your key file. For regular user auth, just stick with OAuth. Here’s what tripped me up: files over 5MB need resumable uploads, not simple ones. Also, the sharing permissions API has tight rate limits - hit them fast if you’re sharing with lots of users at once. Batch operations are flaky too. I added retry logic for failed uploads since network drops happen all the time with big files. And make sure you handle users revoking permissions later - your app will crash otherwise.