Using the google drive API to download a spreadsheet in csv format

Question

I\'m sorry if this is an obvious question, I\'m still pretty new to the API. I\'m using the python drive api library, and trying to download a google spreadsheet as a csv.

Answer 1

(Jul 2016) This question is phrased correctly, but in essence is a duplicate of another thread (Download a spreadsheet from Google Docs using Python). While some of the previous answers to this question below may still work (although answers are in JS/Apps Script not Python), a new Drive API version (v3) and new Sheets API version (v4) make them slightly outdated although the previous versions of both have not been deprecated (yet). Modern Google API access occurs using API keys or OAuth2 authorization, primarily with the Google APIs Client Libraries, including the one for Python.

To perform the task requested in/by the OP, you would perhaps query for specific Sheets to download, then perform the actual export(s) with the Drive API. Since this is likely a common operation, I wrote a blogpost sharing a code snippet that does this for you. If you wish to pursue exporting further, I've got another pair of posts along with a video that outlines how to upload files to and download files from Google Drive.

Note that there is also a Google Sheets API, but it's primarily for spreadsheet-oriented operations, i.e., inserting data, reading spreadsheet rows, cell formatting, creating charts, adding pivot tables, etc., not file-based requests like exporting where the Drive API is the correct one to use.