Hi everyone,
In summary: Google Drive is changing how some of its content is served and downloaded. If you are embedding Drive files in your apps via a drive.google.com/uc URL, you will need to update those URLs wherever they are stored by May 1st. We will also reach out directly to affected app owners and notify them that action will be required.
In detail: Historically, Google Drive offered a “download URL” that could be used to embed and serve images and other types of file content. As part of the gradual transition away from third-party cookie support, Google Drive has changed how it serves and downloads some of its content and will not offer download URLs anymore. AppSheet is benefiting from an exception until May 1st, 2024 and will be able to serve your Google Drive content via this download URL until that date.
Google Drive’s download URL starts with drive.google.com/uc and often looks like drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=file_ID.
AppSheet creators may be using it in their app definition settings and even in the data sources themselves.
You may already have noticed that Drive content embedded with that URL in websites or other apps is not displayed. Starting on May 1st, 2024, the same will be true on the AppSheet platform and AppSheet creators need to update how this content is accessed to ensure their end users are not impacted afterwards.
The AppSheet team is taking a number of steps to help AppSheet creators navigate this:
- AppSheet will send an email to creators with AppSheet solutions that are impacted. However, as some of these download URLs may be specified inside data sources, AppSheet may not be able to detect all solutions facing this issue.
- AppSheet will be posting a banner in the AppSheet editor to warn AppSheet creators.
- After a certain date (tentatively April 1st), end users will start seeing a warning in the AppSheet apps they use when they access an image or file that is accessed via Google Drive’s download URL. The warning will let them know that they won’t be able to see that specific content starting May 1st unless the owner of the Appsheet app takes action.
All of the above are to raise awareness about the change and to avoid disrupting customer operations on May 1st.
Additionally, AppSheet is setting a help page to guide AppSheet creators on updating their solutions and their data sources. Our plan is to update the page if we discover additional valuable information to help app creators. The supported methods for AppSheet solutions are available in our documentation on Display images and documents.
Let us know if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Arthur Rallu, for the AppSheet team
FAQ
- How do I know if I am affected?
If your app is loading content or has links that contain drive.google.com/uc as part of their URL, those will stop working after May 1st. Other drive.google.com URLs are unaffected - only the /uc endpoint is going away. More information is in our help page.
- Can you tell me if my app is affected?
We are notifying app owners via email if we are able to detect those URLs being displayed in their application or defined in their app definition. However, we cannot guarantee that we will identify every affected app with 100% certainty - for example, if an external data source has affected Drive URLs in rows that are not being accessed by AppSheet, we would not be able to identify that.
- Does this mean my Drive files are being deleted? Will I lose data?
No files are affected as part of this change - only the ability to access those files via drive.google.com/uc.
- Do I need to re-upload my Drive files?
The files and their content remain unchanged. The issue is that AppSheet and web browsers will no longer be able to access them via Google Drive’s download URLs. App creators only need to change how to specify and give access to them.
- Why is Drive making this change?
The Google Drive team has published a blog post here that explains the rationale and technical reasons for this transition.
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