I’m building a web app that connects to Google Drive using their API. The app shows users their Drive files and I want to display thumbnail previews for each file.
Everything works fine when users have just one Google account signed in. But most of my users are logged into several Google accounts at once, and that’s where things break. The thumbnail images won’t load properly.
When I test the thumbnail URLs manually in a browser, Google asks me to pick which account to use first. But here’s the weird part - the regular file links (the ones that open docs directly) work without any account selection prompt.
Looking at both URL types, I noticed the working links include domain-specific info while the thumbnail URLs don’t. This seems to be why one works with multiple accounts and the other doesn’t.
Has anyone else run into this issue? Is there a way to get thumbnail URLs that include the domain information, or am I doing something wrong in my implementation?
yeah i had similar headaches with this. what fixed it for me was switching to use the webContentLink instead of thumbnailLink when multiple accounts detected. not perfect thumbnails but at least images load consistently. alternatively you can try forcing a specific domain in your oauth scope - helps google figure out which account context to use without the picker popup.
This happens because thumbnail URLs lack the proper authentication context when multiple Google accounts are active. Instead of modifying URLs with parameters, consider using the Drive API’s get method with alt=media and setting proper headers. When you make the API call, ensure your access token corresponds to the correct account by refreshing it with the specific user’s credentials before each request. Another approach that worked in my implementation was to fetch thumbnails server-side and cache them temporarily, then serve them to your frontend. This eliminates the browser’s account selection issue entirely since your server handles the authentication. The domain information you mentioned is tied to workspace accounts - if you’re dealing with mixed personal and workspace accounts, you might need to handle the authentication flow differently for each account type.
I encountered this exact problem last year when deploying an enterprise file browser. The issue stems from Google’s authentication context handling when multiple accounts are present. What solved it for me was explicitly passing the account hint parameter in my Drive API requests. You need to include the authuser parameter with the specific account index or email when making the thumbnail request. Also check if you’re properly handling the domain parameter in your OAuth flow - for G Suite accounts this becomes crucial. The reason regular file links work is because they redirect through Google’s account picker, but thumbnail URLs are direct image requests that bypass this mechanism. Try appending [email protected] to your thumbnail URLs and see if that resolves the multiple account confusion.