Linking Google Drive

Venuesmith pulls photos from Google Drive via shared links. Single files work out of the box; whole-folder import additionally needs a one-time server API key (admin task, below).

Sharing a single file

1. In Google Drive, right-click the image
2. Click Share → Share
3. Under General access, change Restricted to Anyone with the link (Viewer)
4. Click Copy link - it looks like:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AbCdEfGhIjKlMnOp/view?usp=sharing

5. In the app: Locations → your location → Photos, paste into the import field, choose a category, click Import

Sharing a whole folder

1. Right-click the folder in Drive → Share → Share
2. Set General access to Anyone with the link (Viewer)
3. Copy the folder link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XyZaBcDeFgHiJk

4. Paste it into the import field and click Import
5. Up to 50 images come in per import, each AI-tagged and usage-tracked

Folder import needs a server API key

Listing a folder's contents uses the Google Drive API, which requires a GOOGLE_API_KEY configured on the server. If you see "Google Drive folder import needs GOOGLE_API_KEY set on the server", either ask your admin to complete the setup below, or fall back to sharing files individually.

Admin: creating the Google API key (one-time)

1. Go to console.cloud.google.com and create (or select) a project
2. Open APIs & Services → Library, search Google Drive API, click Enable
3. Open APIs & Services → Credentials → Create credentials → API key
4. Recommended: click Edit API key and restrict it to the Google Drive API only
5. Add the key to the server environment:

# /var/www/adam/.env.local
GOOGLE_API_KEY=AIzaSy...

6. Rebuild and restart the app (npm run build && pm2 restart adam)

The key only reads files that are already shared as Anyone with the link - it grants no access to private Drive content.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
"Drive list failed (403)"	Folder is not shared as Anyone with the link, or the API key is restricted to the wrong API
"Drive link did not resolve to an image"	The single file isn't shared publicly, or it's not an image format we accept
"could not parse Google Drive link"	Copy the link from the Share dialog, not the browser address bar of a preview page
Photos import but look low-resolution	Drive sometimes serves preview sizes for very large files; keep originals under 10MB