Sheet protection fails with 'grid id not found' error when using Google Sheets API

Other Questions Google Sheets
1

I keep getting an error when trying to protect ranges in my Google Sheet

I’m working with the Google Sheets API and trying to add protected ranges to my spreadsheet. However, I keep running into this error:

HttpError 400 - “Invalid requests[0].addProtectedRange: No grid with id: 1”

Here’s my current code:

def protect_sheet_ranges(sheet_id):
    sheets_service = build_sheets_client()

    protection_requests = [
        {
            "addProtectedRange": {
                'protectedRange': {
                    "range": {
                        "sheetId": 1,
                        "startRowIndex": 0,
                        "endRowIndex": 0,
                        "startColumnIndex": 0
                    },
                    "description": "Header row protection",
                    "warningOnly": True
                }
            }
        }
    ]

    request_body = {
        'requests': protection_requests
    }
    
    result = sheets_service.spreadsheets().batchUpdate(
        spreadsheetId=sheet_id,
        body=request_body
    ).execute()

I’m not sure if this is a bug with the API or if I’m doing something wrong with the sheet ID reference. Has anyone encountered this before?

2

Yeah, I ran into this same problem a few weeks back. You’re using sheetId: 1, but that sheet doesn’t exist. Try sheetId: 0 instead - that’s usually the first sheet. Or call the get method on your spreadsheet first to check which sheet IDs actually exist.

3

Had the same problem building an automation tool for our team’s reports. Yeah, it’s the sheetId reference, but here’s what really got me - this error shows up even when the sheetId exists if you’re dealing with new sheets or someone just renamed/moved stuff around. I ended up writing a helper function that grabs current sheet properties before every protection operation. Learned this the hard way: sheetIds change when you duplicate or import sheets from other spreadsheets. If you’re using template sheets that get copied a lot, don’t hardcode the sheetId - validate it dynamically each time. Would’ve saved me hours when our template structure changed.

4

This happens when you’re referencing a sheetId that doesn’t exist in your spreadsheet. The sheetId isn’t the same as your spreadsheet ID - it’s Google’s internal identifier for each sheet tab. I hit this exact problem last month on a similar project. Here’s the thing: Google auto-generates these sheetId values starting from 0 for the first sheet. If you’ve hardcoded sheetId as 1, you’re probably targeting a sheet that doesn’t exist. To fix it, grab the actual sheet metadata first using spreadsheets().get() and check the sheets array in the response. Each sheet object has a properties field with the real sheetId value. Quick fix: if you’re targeting the first sheet, try changing your sheetId from 1 to 0 - the first sheet usually has ID 0.