Download a file from web URL (Google Drive) to local drive

[alabamian2]

Hi everyone, hope your weekend is going well.

I’m attempting to work with Google Drive and I need to render this link (normally via browser) which triggers a file download into a local Downloads folder.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/FILE_ID_HERE/export?format=xlsx

I tried to use Download (legacy), Transfer Files, HTTP Retriever, Excel Reader, CSV Reader, but I can’t get it to download. I found this post, but having difficult time getting it to work.

Problem in downloading a file from a URL

Hi, I’m trying to download a file from a URL which is obtained from a rest web service by get request. I separated the URL from the response and transformed it to a flow variable by table row to flow variable node. The URL is clean and directly points to a .jpg file but I get this error msg from “file download” node: Variable “url” does not denote a valid file: https//… Also when I want to use https connection node to pass the URL to “download” node, I get this error for inputting the URL ma…

Could you please direct me to the right Forum topic or documentation? Thank you so much for your help in advance.

[julian.bunzel]

Hi @alabamian2,

I don’t think this is possible, since you would need to authenticate (using OAuth2) to login to google and download the file and the nodes you mentioned do not provide an option to use Oauth2.

Maybe these workflow can help:

Google Authentication - Sheets and Drive – wiswedel

Best,
Julian

[alabamian2]

Thank you @julian.bunzel. Roger that. I couldn’t find a solution either, other than Selenium nodes but then I read this. I don’t have Selenium anyhow. I’ll review your workflow post as well. I may rewrite the workflow around Google Drive Connector and Transfer Files to grab all files and start from there. Thank you so much for your time and help, @julian.bunzel.

Saving files#w3 Selenium Nodes — Sample workflows

How can I download files with the Selenium Nodes?#q14 Selenium Nodes — Frequently asked questions

[qqilihq]

I think this should work with the Selenium Nodes. With newer Chrome version, you’ll probably not even need the work around from the FAQ any more. Feel free to share your workflow if you need support with building a Selenium workflow (you can get the trial here).

By the way: Probably this can also be solved with this one using the REST API?

– Philipp

[alabamian2]

Hi @qqilihq,
Thank you very much for the info again. The original use case was addressed by rewriting the workflow, but I’m sure I’ll have another similar one soon and I’ll be sure to test out the Selenium nodes.

One question on different use case:
From this page https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=world%20cup&geo=US , can Selenium click this below [download] icon to download the csv file to the Download folder? There are several charts/downloads on the page. And after downloading, can Selenium (or other nodes) rename the file so that I can name each file with chart type and maybe keyword or some sort of ID/tracking parameter as I loop through a list?

Thank you so much in advance for answering the question.