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Google Docs allows you to share a document with just the URL. The URL contains a key and authkey to identify the document and authorize access. This allows anonymous access to anyone who has the key.

I would like to access this type of shared document within an application. I've looked at the APIs, and haven't seen anything yet. It seems like this should be possible - since you can access such a document anonymously with a browser, why shouldn't an application be able to access the same document? Anyone know if/how this can be done?

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  • They've recently added the 'authkey' older spreadsheets dont have them. I now have the same problem. QL reference code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/… Commented Mar 28, 2011 at 7:57
  • If you provide an example of the way you're using a non-AuthKey Doc in your application, that would narrow down this question significantly. Commented Apr 3, 2011 at 19:48

3 Answers 3

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Update for anyone who lands here in 2017+ (as I did). Google seems to have changed the way that share links look. They now look like this when you click get shareable link.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/[idwillbehere]/edit#gid=0

You can download the the spreadsheet with this curl command. Make sure the sheet is set so that anyone with the link can access it.

curl -o /path/to/file/you/want/csv/to/go.csv 'https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=[the-id-of-your-spreadsheet]&output=csv' -L

the -L is the trick here has google often moves the csv around but will send you a redirect link. -L tells curl to follow the redirects until it lands on the file.

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I really wish there was a convenient way of also using that token for allowing per-file access to other applications, especially to enable writing. Does anyone know if that's a "thing"?
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Some info may help:

When sharing a doc with the link, the URL look like: https://docs.google.com/document/d/xxxxx/edit?hl=en&authkey=yyyyy

To get a copy of the document from curl/wget, use the URL like https://docs.google.com/document/d/xxxxx/export?hl=en&authkey=yyyyy&exportFormat=pdf

See http://code.google.com/apis/documents/docs/3.0/developers_guide_protocol.html#DownloadingDocs for Exporting document.

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Thanks for sharing, excellent advice, I got the URL from the Google Docs API. This is now supplanted by the Google Drive API at developers.google.com/drive/manage-downloads
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You can use a simple URL to access the document, in this format:

https://docs.google.com/feeds/download/<type>/Export?docID=<document_ID>&exportFormat=<format>

Type could be any of these - documents - spreadsheets - drawings - presentations

Format could be any of these

  • html
  • txt
  • rtf
  • doc
  • odt
  • xls
  • ods
  • jpeg
  • png
  • svg
  • ppt

For more details, please refer to the Google Drive API at https://developers.google.com/drive/manage-downloads

Here is an example of a URL to export a Google Presentation as PDF

https://docs.google.com/feeds/download/presentations/Export?docID=15HI6KUtc7dm1jZuk1JY022wxWMcYzz3CiC0dxokokak&exportFormat=pdf

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2 Comments

Looks like they may have changed this. Your example doesn't work, and neither does the example I tried.
This (almost) works for me. However, the URL before the question mark should end in '/export' (lower case 'e'), not ' Export'.

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