I have an Excel spreadsheet with cells containing Google Drive links. When I click these links manually, they open the files in my browser since the sharing permissions are set to allow anyone with the link to view them.
I want to automate this process using VBA code. My goal is to programmatically access these Google Drive URLs from the Excel cells and download the linked files directly to a specific folder on my computer.
Is there a way to write VBA code that can read the Google Drive links from my worksheet and automatically save those files to my local drive? I’m looking for a solution that doesn’t require manual clicking on each link.
You can accomplish this using VBA’s XMLHttpRequest object to download files from Google Drive URLs. The key is modifying the Google Drive share links to direct download format by replacing ‘/view?usp=sharing’ with ‘/export?format=pdf’ or ‘/uc?export=download’ depending on the file type. I’ve implemented similar functionality in my projects and found that you need to handle authentication properly - make sure your links are set to public access. Create a subroutine that loops through your cells, extracts the file ID from each Google Drive URL, constructs the download URL, then uses ADODB.Stream to save the binary response to your target folder. Be aware that Google sometimes blocks automated requests, so you might need to add delays between downloads or handle rate limiting errors in your error handling routine.
yeah i’ve done this before but ran into issues with googles security blocking vba requests. easiest workaround is using urldownloadtofile API instead of xmlhttp - works more reliably. just make sure to convert the drive links to direct download format first by swapping the ending part. also add some error handeling cause google will occasionaly block your requests if you go too fast.
I encountered similar challenges when building a document management system that pulled files from various cloud storage platforms. The approach that worked consistently for me was implementing a hybrid solution using the Windows API combined with Internet Explorer automation through VBA. Rather than relying solely on HTTP requests which Google frequently blocks, I used CreateObject to instantiate an IE instance in invisible mode, navigated to the modified download URLs, and captured the download prompts programmatically. This method bypasses many of Google’s automated request detection mechanisms since it mimics genuine browser behavior. The critical part is properly formatting the URLs and implementing a robust waiting mechanism to ensure downloads complete before processing the next file. You’ll also want to include cleanup routines to properly dispose of the IE objects to prevent memory leaks during batch operations.