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Google Drive Picker

The @uppy/google-drive-picker plugin lets users import files from their Google Drive account using the new Picker API.

A Companion instance is required for the Google Drive Picker plugin to work. Companion downloads the files from Google Drive, and uploads them to the destination. This saves the user bandwidth, especially helpful if they are on a mobile connection.

You can self-host Companion or get a hosted version with any Transloadit plan.

See also Google Photos Picker.

When should I use this?​

When you want to let users import files from their Google Drive account.

You should use this plugin over our other Google Drive plugin if you want to avoid using a restricted API scope, which requires CASA Tier 2 compliance.

The downside of using the Picker UI made by Google is less controls, downloading an additional bundle, and a less consistent user experience.

npm install @uppy/google-drive-picker

Use​

Using Google Drive Picker requires setup in both Uppy and Companion.

Prerequisites​

Make sure your web app is hosted on a server that either does not set Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy at all or sets it to same-origin-allow-popups.

Initial setup​

To sign up for API keys, go to the Google Developer Console.

Create a project for your app if you don’t have one yet.

  • On the project’s dashboard, enable the Google Picker API (for Google Drive).
  • Create an API key:
    • Application restrictions: Websites
    • Website restrictions: Add the base URL of the domain name you’re hosting the frontend web app on, example: https://example.com. Note that if you’re testing locally you need to add http://localhost:LOCAL_PORT or similar
    • API restrictions: Restrict key: Tick Google Picker API
    • Click Show key and use it as the apiKey argument to Uppy.
  • Create an OAuth 2.0 Client ID of type Web application:
    • Authorized JavaScript origins: Add the base URL of the domain name you’re hosting the frontend web app on, example: https://example.com. Note that if you’re testing locally you need to add http://localhost:LOCAL_PORT or similar. This will be your clientId in Uppy.
  • For how to find appId, see options below.
  • Some users reported that the Google Drive API must be enabled as well, so if you’re having problems, please try that.

Use in Uppy​

import Uppy from '@uppy/core';
import Dashboard from '@uppy/dashboard';
import GoogleDrivePicker from '@uppy/google-drive-picker';

import '@uppy/core/css/style.min.css';
import '@uppy/dashboard/css/style.min.css';

new Uppy()
	.use(Dashboard, { inline: true, target: '#dashboard' })
	.use(GoogleDrivePicker, {
		companionUrl: 'https://your-companion.com',
		clientId: 'From Google Developer Console',
		apiKey: 'From Google Developer Console',
		appId: 'From Google Developer Console',
	});

Use with Transloadit​

import { COMPANION_URL, COMPANION_ALLOWED_HOSTS } from '@uppy/transloadit';
import GoogleDrivePicker from '@uppy/google-drive-picker';

uppy.use(GoogleDrivePicker, {
	companionUrl: COMPANION_URL,
	companionAllowedHosts: COMPANION_ALLOWED_HOSTS,
	clientId: 'From Google Developer Console',
	apiKey: 'From Google Developer Console',
	appId: 'From Google Developer Console',
});

Use in Companion​

Companion is used to download/upload the picked files. Companion supports this plugin out-of-the-box, however it must be enabled in Companion with the enableGooglePickerEndpoint / COMPANION_ENABLE_GOOGLE_PICKER_ENDPOINT option. For this plugin, all credentials are public (non-secret) and provided in the frontend.

API​

Options​

id​

A unique identifier for this plugin (string, default is a unique ID for each plugin).

title​

Title / name shown in the UI, such as Dashboard tabs (string, default is the name of the plugin).

target​

DOM element, CSS selector, or plugin to place the drag and drop area into (string, Element, Function, or UIPlugin, default: Dashboard).

companionUrl​

URL to a Companion instance (string, default: null).

For Transloadit-hosted Companion use the COMPANION_URL constant exported by @uppy/transloadit, which is https://api2.transloadit.com/companion. Do not use a regional hostname such as api2-eu-west-1.transloadit.com: the OAuth flow then starts on one host and returns to another, and login fails with “Cannot find state in session”.

companionHeaders​

Custom headers that should be sent along to Companion on every request (Object, default: {}).

companionAllowedHosts​

The valid and authorised URL(s) from which OAuth responses should be accepted (string or RegExp or Array). This option is useful when you have your Companion running on several hosts. Otherwise, the default value should do fine, which uses the origin of companionUrl.

This value can be a string, a RegExp pattern, or an Array of these. Strings are evaluated as regular expressions too and will be wrapped in a RegExp like so:

new RegExp(`^${value}$`);

Important: You must escape regex characters like ., or you might open your app up to security vulnerabilities.

  • Example correct strings
    • '^(?:.*\\.)?example\.com$' matches example.com and all of its subdomains.
    • 'https://example\.com' matches https://example.com only.
  • Example vulnerability: 'https://www.example.com' would allow an attacker with the domain wwwxexample.com to forge and inject a fraudulent token into Uppy.

companionKeysParams​

Only applies to plugins that sign in through Companion (Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, …). The Google Drive Picker and Google Photos Picker ignore it; they authenticate directly with Google. Google Drive Picker uses its own clientId, apiKey and appId, while Google Photos Picker uses its own clientId.

Use your own OAuth app with Transloadit-hosted Companion instead of Transloadit’s shared one (Object, default: undefined). It has two fields:

  • key: your Transloadit API key.
  • credentialsName: the name of a “Companion OAuth” credential you created in the Transloadit console, which holds the provider’s OAuth key and secret.
companionKeysParams: {
	key: 'YOUR_TRANSLOADIT_API_KEY',
	credentialsName: 'google_drive_own',
}

Before the login popup opens, the plugin sends these values to Companion to obtain a pre-auth token, and Companion fetches the OAuth key and secret from Transloadit when the flow starts. The values are also sent along with every later request in a uppy-credentials-params header. Companion does not validate the credential name up front, so a wrong name only fails when a user tries to sign in. On Transloadit-hosted Companion this option is required for Google Drive, see Google Drive: Use with Transloadit.

companionCookiesRule​

This option correlates to the RequestCredentials value (string, default: 'same-origin').

This tells the plugin whether to send cookies to Companion.

locale​

An object with strings property containing additional i18n strings. The key is the i18n key and the value is the English string.

Example:

{
	strings: {
		someKey: 'Some English string',
	},
}

storage​

A custom storage to be used for the plugin’s persistent data. Type AsyncStore, default is LocalStorage.

clientId​

The client ID from the Initial setup (string).

apiKey​

The API key from the Initial setup (string).

appId​

The App ID can be found in the Google Developer Console: Project number under IAM & Admin > Settings.

note

Make sure you use the project number (not project ID or project name), and make sure you’re in the correct project. Note that if this is set to the wrong value it will be ignored by Google when your project is in testing mode, but once in production users will get 404 errors when trying to download.