Use Google Drive & Google Sheets with Shop Uploader

Private Google Drive URLs

Normally, Shop Uploader requires that your URLs be publicly accessible over the internet. But with the Google Drive™ integration, you can use your private file URLs and even file paths inside your Google Drive.

This process works for images, videos, and digital files!

Shop Uploader will download files directly from your Google Drive during the upload process and the file will never need to be shared publicly over the internet!

Using the Google Drive file URL

You can use any file in your Google Drive by right-clicking and choosing Copy link. Now you can paste that link in your spreadsheets.

Your URL will look something like this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rtUX...VcHEC/view?usp=drive_link

Using the Google Drive file path

You can also use the path to a file in your Google Drive. This is a game-changer for Google Drive users. As long as you have a sorted file-system, you will be able to use links without manually copying or sharing.

Have your images named by SKU? If you know the SKU, you know the path!

drive://etsy/images/my-sku-1_image1.png
drive://etsy/images/my-sku-1_image2.png
drive://etsy/images/my-sku-1_image3.png

Have your images sorted into folders? If you know the SKU, you know the path!

drive://etsy/products/my-sku-1/images/my-sku-1_1.png
drive://etsy/products/my-sku-1/images/my-sku-1_2.png
drive://etsy/products/my-sku-1/images/my-sku-1_3.png
drive://etsy/products/my-sku-1/videos/my-sku-1_1.mp4

Google Drive path structure

Google Drive paths must start with drive://, followed by the file path.

File paths must be unique

For example with two images:

drive://duplicate.png
drive://duplicate.png

There’s no way to tell the difference! They might be different files, but the path is the same.

Root

A file in the root of your drive (not within any folders) would look like this:
drive://my-digital-file.pdf

Naming and sorting your files

Google Drive’s API works best with unique file names.

✅ Good sorting and naming:

drive://etsy-images/mysku1_img1.png
drive://etsy-images/mysku1_img2.png
drive://etsy-images/mysku1/mysku1_img1.png
drive://etsy-images/mysku1/mysku1_img2.png

❌ Bad sorting and naming:

drive://etsy-images/mysku1/cover-image.png
drive://etsy-images/mysku2/cover-image.png
drive://etsy-images/mysku3/cover-image.png

In the bad example, there are three files named cover-image.png, this makes searching for the file much harder because Google Drive doesn’t let us search using folders or file paths, only by file or folder name. If you use a sorting system like this, your uploads will take longer and you may run out of daily requests allowed by Google Drive.

If you are still in the process of designing your sorting and naming system, we highly recommend making file name unique. As long as the actual file’s name is unique, folders can have similar names (Like etsy-images or mysku1 in the good example).

Upload Google Sheets

Normally, Shop Uploader only supports XLSX and CSV files. To use Google Sheets, you would need to export your sheet to XLSX and then upload the file. But with the Google Sheets integration, you can copy upload your Google Sheets directly.

To upload Google Sheets:

1. Copy the URL to your spreadsheet
2. On the Uploads page, select the upload source: Google Sheets
3. Paste your spreadsheet URL into the text box
4. Click Start Upload

Your Google Sheets URL will look something like this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11eL6...b2x4w/edit?pli=1#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11eL6...b2x4w/edit?usp=drive_link