How to add a Google Drive folder to “My Drive” section to other users

Question

I have a Google Drive herarchichal folder and subfolders structure owned by me and I want to add it to the "My Drive" section in all users in our Google Apps for Business domain automatically.

How can I do this? I heard about Google Apps Script and AddToFolder function. Please, can you help me?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This is very easy to do if each user could just access a link and authorize a script (that you build) to do the job for them (place a shared folder in their root folder).

But if it's a lot of users, you are the admin of the domain, and you really want to do it all automatically without anyone doing a thing, it is possible but probably very difficult to do. I mean, you need to access the Drive API directly and set oAuth 2.0 to impersonate your users, because the Apps Script built-in DocsList API does not have this impersonation feature. If you're really going for it, take a look at this other question.

Answer 2

First, set up a simple web app. The Google App Script editor even has a template that gets you most of the way there.

Second, implement something like the following and call it from the handler function.

function addRequiredFolders() {
  var root = DocsList.getRootFolder();
  var folderIds = ["somefolderid", "anotherfolderid"];
  folderIds.map( function(id) { DocsList.getFolderById(id).addToFolder(root) } );
}

I've tested a variant of this up to this point. The next step is to publish the Web App for your domain, and email it out to people or otherwise distribute it. I assume they will have the unpleasant step of needing to grant the web app permission to access their documents.

Answer 3

Right now I've implemented this feature using "Google Documents List API". I know that this API is deprecated but for now it works.

(the code is not finished)

  (...)

  //var user = Session.getActiveUser().getUserLoginId()  OR
  var user = e.parameter.user_email 

  var TB_folder = e.parameter.TB_folder 
  var TB_sub_folder = e.parameter.TB_sub_folder 


  var base = 'https://docs.google.com/feeds/';
  var fetchArgs = googleOAuth_('docs', base);

  fetchArgs.method = 'POST';

  var rawXml =  "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>" + "<entry xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom'>"
         +  "<category scheme='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#kind' "
         +  "term='http://schemas.google.com/docs/2007#folder'/>"
         +  "<title>" + TB_folder +"</title>"
         +  "</entry>";

  fetchArgs.payload = rawXml;
  fetchArgs.contentType = 'application/atom+xml';
  fetchArgs.contentLength = 245;

 // POST a https://docs.google.com/feeds/default/private/full

 var url = base + user + '/private/full/?v=3&alt=json';
 var content = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url, fetchArgs).getContentText()
 var json = Utilities.jsonParse(content)


 var folder = json.entry.gd$resourceId.$t // -> I get "folder:folder_id"
 var id_folder = folder.split(':')[1]

 var folder_created_by = json.entry.gd$lastModifiedBy.email.$t
 var folder_owner      = json.entry.author['0'].email.$t

(...)

Now, you have the folder ID and can use it to create another subfolder or a file...

You need this function :

  //Google oAuth
  function googleOAuth_(name,scope) {
    var oAuthConfig = UrlFetchApp.addOAuthService(name);
    oAuthConfig.setRequestTokenUrl("https://www.google.com/accounts/OAuthGetRequestToken?scope="+scope);
    oAuthConfig.setAuthorizationUrl("https://www.google.com/accounts/OAuthAuthorizeToken");
    oAuthConfig.setAccessTokenUrl("https://www.google.com/accounts/OAuthGetAccessToken");

    oAuthConfig.setConsumerKey("XXXXXXXX");
    oAuthConfig.setConsumerSecret("XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX");

    //oAuthConfig.setConsumerKey("anonymous");
    //oAuthConfig.setConsumerSecret("anonymous");

    return {oAuthServiceName:name, oAuthUseToken:"always"};
  }     

---

You can create a file or add a user to a file (add a wriker).

Now I want to implement this functionality with " Drive API " . If someone has done it would be nice to get some help.

Sergi