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Downloading Shared Files on Google Drive Using Curl

Downloading Shared Files on Google Drive Using Curl

When the shared files on Google Drive is downloaded, it is necessary to change the download method by the file size. The boundary of file size when the method is changed is about 40MB.

File size < 40MB

CURL

filename="### filename ###"
fileid="### file ID ###"
curl -L -o ${filename} "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=${fileid}"

File size > 40MB

When it tries to download the file with more than 40MB, Google says to download from following URL.

<a id="uc-download-link" class="goog-inline-block jfk-button jfk-button-action" href="/uc?export=download&amp;confirm=####&amp;id=### file ID ###">download</a>

Query included confirm=#### is important for downloading the files with large size. In order to retrieve the query from the HTML, it uses pup.

pup 'a#uc-download-link attr{href}'

And sed is used to remove amp;.

sed -e 's/amp;//g'`

So curl command is as follows.

CURL

filename="### filename ###"
fileid="### file ID ###"
query=`curl -c ./cookie.txt -s -L "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=${fileid}" | pup 'a#uc-download-link attr{href}' | sed -e 's/amp;//g'`
curl -b ./cookie.txt -L -o ${filename} "https://drive.google.com${query}"

The value of confirm is changed every time. So when the value of confirm is retrieved, the cookie is saved using -c ./cookie.txt, and when the file is downloaded, the cookie has to be read using -b ./cookie.txt.

By using this method, you can download files with the size of over 1 GB.

Reference: http://qiita.com/netwing/items/f2a595389f39206235e8

Update at March 21, 2019

sample script

This is a simple bash script.

#!/bin/bash
fileid="### file id ###"
filename="MyFile.csv"
curl -c ./cookie -s -L "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=${fileid}" > /dev/null
curl -Lb ./cookie "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&confirm=`awk '/download/ {print $NF}' ./cookie`&id=${fileid}" -o ${filename}

Reference: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48133080/how-to-download-a-google-drive-url-via-curl-or-wget/48133859#48133859

CLI tool

If you will use a CLI tool, please use this. This is a CLI tool to download shared files and folders from Google Drive. For large file, the resumable download can be also run.

Updated at February 17, 2022

Recently, it seems that the specification of this flow has been changed. So I updated this answer. In order to download a publicly shared file of large size from Google Drive, you can use the following script.

#!/bin/bash
fileid="### file id ###"
filename="MyFile.csv"
html=`curl -c ./cookie -s -L "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=${fileid}"`
curl -Lb ./cookie "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&`echo ${html}|grep -Po '(confirm=[a-zA-Z0-9\-_]+)'`&id=${fileid}" -o ${filename}
  • In this case, the ID for downloading is retrieved from the HTML data as follows.

      <form id="downloadForm" action="https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&amp;id={fileId}&amp;confirm={value for downloading}" method="post">
    
  • When you want to download a publicly shared file of small size from Google Drive, you can use the following command.

      curl -L "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=### fileId ###" -o sampleoutput.csv
    
  • Also, goodls was updated to v1.2.8.

Testing

  • August 3, 2022: I could confirm that the method on February 17, 2022, can be still available.
@Green-cattow
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For MacOS use
curl -Lb ./cookie "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&`echo ${html} | grep -Eio '(confirm=[a-zA-Z0-9-_]+)'`&id=${fileid}" -o ${filename}

@tathastu871
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tathastu871 commented Feb 28, 2022

grep invalid range
chang to
confirm=[-a-zA-Z0-9_]

furthur it retrieves html not file

@tanaikech
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Author

@Green-cattow
Thank you for your comment. At windows, it seems that both -Po and -Eio can be used.

@tathastu871

grep invalid range
chang to
confirm=[-a-zA-Z0-9_]

furthur it retrieves html not file

Unfortunately, I cannote replicate your grep invalid range. When I tested my proposed script again, I confirmed that no error occurs. I deeply apologize for this.

For example, curl -s -L 'https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id={fileId}' | grep -Po '(confirm=[a-zA-Z0-9\-_]+)' returns confirm=###.

@tathastu871
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regex for character class says - must be added to last or first if itwas litereal for matching because in middle it acts as a range

@tanaikech
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tanaikech commented Mar 4, 2022

@tathastu871 Thank you for the information. Can you provide the document site about your replying? I would like to study it.

@Apprisco
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Apprisco commented Aug 2, 2022

Hello, I'm running into a weird issue where it doesn't actually download the file: seems like quota issues or something.

@Apprisco
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Apprisco commented Aug 2, 2022

<title>Google Drive - Quota exceeded</title><style nonce="d11TWo0o1N-HHjsQ0tRdCQ">/* Copyright 2022 Google Inc

@heathen-pwn
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<title>Google Drive - Quota exceeded</title><style nonce="d11TWo0o1N-HHjsQ0tRdCQ">/* Copyright 2022 Google Inc

I confirm

<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title>Google Drive - Quota exceeded</title><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/><style nonce="16NTEEdYEYvBDTlTqenotA">/* Copyright 2022 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved. */ .goog-inline-block{position:relative;display:-moz-inline-box;display:inline-block}* html .goog-inline-block{display:inline}*:first-child+html .goog-inline-block{display:inline}.goog-link-button{position:relative;color:#15c;text-decoration:underline;cursor:pointer}.goog-link-button-disabled{color:#ccc;text-decoration:none;cursor:default}body{color:#222;font:normal 13px/1.4 arial,sans-serif;margin:0}.grecaptcha-badge{visibility:hidden}.uc-main{padding-top:50px;text-align:center}#uc-dl-icon{display:inline-block;margin-top:16px;padding-right:1em;vertical-align:top}#uc-text{display:inline-block;max-width:68ex;text-align:left}.uc-error-caption,.uc-warning-caption{color:#222;font-size:16px}#uc-download-link{text-decoration:none}.uc-name-size a{color:#15c;text-decoration:none}.uc-name-size a:visited{color:#61c;text-decoration:none}.uc-name-size a:active{color:#d14836;text-decoration:none}.uc-footer{color:#777;font-size:11px;padding-bottom:5ex;padding-top:5ex;text-align:center}.uc-footer a{color:#15c}.uc-footer a:visited{color:#61c}.uc-footer a:active{color:#d14836}.uc-footer-divider{color:#ccc;width:100%}</style><link rel="icon" href="null"/></head><body><div class="uc-main"><div id="uc-text"><p class="uc-error-caption">Sorry, you can&#39;t view or download this file at this time.</p><p class="uc-error-subcaption">Too many users have viewed or downloaded this file recently. Please try accessing the file again later. If the file you are trying to access is particularly large or is shared with many people, it may take up to 24 hours to be able to view or download the file. If you still can't access a file after 24 hours, contact your domain administrator.</p></div></div><div class="uc-footer"><hr class="uc-footer-divider"></div></body></html>

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