Downloading Shared Files on Google Drive Using Curl

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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.

• https://github.com/tanaikech/goodls

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.

Updated at January 21, 2024

From the following @excellproj 's comment,

January 2024 curl -L "https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=${fileId}&export=download&confirm=t" -o "file.zip" working great for me. Small and large files

I checked this endpoint. By this, the following result is obtained. In the current stage, the following endpoint can be used.

https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id={fileId}&confirm=xxx

It seems that various values can be used to xxx of confirm=xxx. So, even confirm=xxx and confirm=yy and confirm=z can be used.

The sample curl command is as follows.

curl "https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id={fileId}&confirm=xxx" -o filename

And/or,

curl -L "https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id={fileId}&confirm=xxx" -o filename

Testing

• August 3, 2022: I could confirm that the method on February 17, 2022, can be still available.
• March 4, 2024: I could confirm that the method on January 21, 2024, can be still available.

@excellproj Thank you for replying.

thank you @excellproj

thanks is good!

January 2024 curl -L "https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=${fileId}&export=download&confirm=t" -o "file.zip" working great for me. Small and large files

I can't download. Would you share some example "original download" and curl download links?

January 2024 curl -L "https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=${fileId}&export=download&confirm=t" -o "file.zip" working great for me. Small and large files

I can't download. Would you share some example "original download" and curl download links?

Тhere's no difference between the original links and the curl link. You just need to replace ${fileId} with the file ID, which you can obtain from the file parameters on Google Drive. It might look like this: 17XznUk5h3eFuZZFvIYcFQzSIAvcnjmEo.
Example:
https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=17XznUk5h3eFuZZFvIYcFQzSIAvcnjmEo&export=download&confirm=y

August 2024:

I found that '&export' and '&confirm' are not required.

These 2 types of file behave differently:

• Drive files (that were simply uploaded) use the URL form (as above) :
  https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=${fileId}
  You cannot edit these; if you try, a new file is created.

• Docs files (that appear in Drive after creating in Docs) :
  You can edit these, and the fileId remains the same after editing.
  When you get the link it ends with '/edit?usp=drive_link'
  and you change that to just '/export' in the curl URL:
  https://docs.google.com/document/d/${fileId}/export.
  It needs 'docs.google.com'; 'drive.usercontent.google.com' got an empty file.
  A plain text file was downloaded as html;
  to download as plain text, I added '?exportFormat=txt' :
  https://docs.google.com/document/d/${fileId}/export?exportFormat=txt
  'document' can be different, e.g. 'sheets'; use whatever is in the URL you get.

Complete command examples (bash) :

fileId='the id of a drive file' 
curl -L "https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=${fileId}" -o 'test_output_1.txt'

fileId='the id of a doc' 
curl -L "https://docs.google.com/document/d/${fileId}/export?exportFormat=txt" -o 'test_output_2.txt'

how to handle it..?

Thank you, as of 22/11/2024 the latter method still works

Thank you, 12/12/2024, it still works

curl -L "https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id={fileId}&confirm=xxx" -o filename