OAuth made easy

Authentication in two lines

OAuth2.0 is complex and difficult to start with. To make it more simple, PyDrive2 makes all authentication into just two lines.

from pydrive2.auth import GoogleAuth

gauth = GoogleAuth()
# Create local webserver and auto handles authentication.
gauth.LocalWebserverAuth()

# Or use the CommandLineAuth(), which provides you with a link to paste
# into your browser. The site it leads to then provides you with an
# authentication token which you paste into the command line.
# Commented out as it is an alternative to the LocalWebserverAuth() above,
# and someone will just copy-paste the entire thing into their editor.

# gauth.CommandLineAuth()

To make this code work, you need to download the application configurations file from APIs Console. Take a look at quickstart for detailed instructions.

LocalWebserverAuth() is a built-in method of GoogleAuth which sets up local webserver to automatically receive authentication code from user and authorizes by itself. You can also use CommandLineAuth() which manually takes code from user at command line.

Automatic and custom authentication with settings.yaml

Read this section if you need a custom authentication flow, such as silent authentication on a remote machine. For an example of such a setup have a look at Sample settings.yaml.

OAuth is complicated and it requires a lot of settings. By default, when you don’t provide any settings, PyDrive will automatically set default values which works for most of the cases. Here are some default settings.

• Read client configuration from file client_secrets.json

• OAuth scope: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive

• Don’t save credentials

• Don’t retrieve refresh token

However, you might want to customize these settings while maintaining two lines of clean code. If that is the case, you can make settings.yaml file in your working directory and PyDrive will read it to customize authentication behavior.

These are all the possible fields of a settings.yaml file:

client_config_backend: {{str}}
client_config_file: {{str}}
client_config:
  client_id: {{str}}
  client_secret: {{str}}
  auth_uri: {{str}}
  token_uri: {{str}}
  redirect_uri: {{str}}
  revoke_uri: {{str}}

service_config:
  client_user_email: {{str}}
  client_json_file_path: {{str}}
  client_json_dict: {{dict}}
  client_json: {{str}}

save_credentials: {{bool}}
save_credentials_backend: {{str}}
save_credentials_file: {{str}}
save_credentials_dict: {{dict}}
save_credentials_key: {{str}}

get_refresh_token: {{bool}}

oauth_scope: {{list of str}}

Fields explained:

client_config_backend (str):

From where to read client configuration(API application settings such as client_id and client_secrets) from. Valid values are ‘file’, ‘settings’ and ‘service’. Default: ‘file’. Required: No.

client_config_file (str):

When client_config_backend is ‘file’, path to the file containing client configuration. Default: ‘client_secrets.json’. Required: No.

client_config (dict):

Place holding dictionary for client configuration when client_config_backend is ‘settings’. Required: Yes, only if client_config_backend is ‘settings’ and not using service_config

client_config[‘client_id’] (str):

Client ID of the application. Required: Yes, only if client_config_backend is ‘settings’

client_config[‘client_secret’] (str):

Client secret of the application. Required: Yes, only if client_config_backend is ‘settings’

client_config[‘auth_uri’] (str):

The authorization server endpoint URI. Default: ‘https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth’. Required: No.

client_config[‘token_uri’] (str):

The token server endpoint URI. Default: ‘https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token’. Required: No.

client_config[‘redirect_uri’] (str):

Redirection endpoint URI. Default: ‘urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob’. Required: No.

client_config[‘revoke_uri’] (str):

Revoke endpoint URI. Default: None. Required: No.

service_config (dict):

Place holding dictionary for client configuration when client_config_backend is ‘service’ or ‘settings’ and using service account. Required: Yes, only if client_config_backend is ‘service’ or ‘settings’ and not using client_config

service_config[‘client_user_email’] (str):

User email that authority was delegated to. Required: No.

service_config[‘client_json_file_path’] (str):

Path to service account .json key file. Required: No.

service_config[‘client_json_dict’] (dict):

Service account .json key file loaded into a dictionary. Required: No.

service_config[‘client_json’] (str):

Service account .json key file loaded into a string. Required: No.

save_credentials (bool):

True if you want to save credentials. Default: False. Required: No.

save_credentials_backend (str):

Backend to save credentials to. ‘file’ and ‘dictionary’ are the only valid values for now. Default: ‘file’. Required: No.

save_credentials_file (str):

Destination of credentials file. Required: Yes, only if save_credentials_backend is ‘file’.

save_credentials_dict (dict):

Dict to use for storing credentials. Required: Yes, only if save_credentials_backend is ‘dictionary’.

save_credentials_key (str):

Key within the save_credentials_dict to store the credentials in. Required: Yes, only if save_credentials_backend is ‘dictionary’.

get_refresh_token (bool):

True if you want to retrieve refresh token along with access token. Default: False. Required: No.

oauth_scope (list of str):

OAuth scope to authenticate. Default: [’https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive’]. Required: No.

Sample settings.yaml

client_config_backend: settings
client_config:
  client_id: 9637341109347.apps.googleusercontent.com
  client_secret: psDskOoWr1P602PXRTHi

save_credentials: True
save_credentials_backend: file
save_credentials_file: credentials.json

get_refresh_token: True

oauth_scope:
  - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file
  - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.install
  - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.metadata

Building your own authentication flow

You might want to build your own authentication flow. For example, you might want to integrate your existing website with Drive API. In that case, you can customize an authentication flow as follows:

1. Get authentication Url from GetAuthUrl().

2. Ask users to visit the authentication Url and grant access to your application. Retrieve authentication code manually by user or automatically by building your own oauth2callback.

3. Call Auth(code) with the authentication code you retrieved from step 2.

Your settings.yaml will work for your customized authentication flow, too.

Here is a sample code for your customized authentication flow

from pydrive2.auth import GoogleAuth

gauth = GoogleAuth()
auth_url = gauth.GetAuthUrl() # Create authentication url user needs to visit
code = AskUserToVisitLinkAndGiveCode(auth_url) # Your customized authentication flow
gauth.Auth(code) # Authorize and build service from the code

Authentication with a service account

A Service account is a special type of Google account intended to represent a non-human user that needs to authenticate and be authorized to access data in Google APIs.

Typically, service accounts are used in scenarios such as:

• Running workloads on virtual machines (VMs).

• Running workloads on data centers that call Google APIs.

• Running workloads which are not tied to the lifecycle of a human user.

If we use OAuth client ID we need to do one manual login into the account with LocalWebserverAuth(). If we use a service account the login is automatic.

from pydrive2.auth import GoogleAuth
from pydrive2.drive import GoogleDrive

def login_with_service_account():
    """
    Google Drive service with a service account.
    note: for the service account to work, you need to share the folder or
    files with the service account email.

    :return: google auth
    """
    # Define the settings dict to use a service account
    # We also can use all options available for the settings dict like
    # oauth_scope,save_credentials,etc.
    settings = {
                "client_config_backend": "service",
                "service_config": {
                    "client_json_file_path": "service-secrets.json",
                }
            }
    # Create instance of GoogleAuth
    gauth = GoogleAuth(settings=settings)
    # Authenticate
    gauth.ServiceAuth()
    return gauth