Importing files from Google Drive

In last posting, we have figured out how to import files from local hard drive.

In this posting, I will delineate how to import files directly from Google Drive. As you know Colab is based on Google Drive, so it is convenient to import files from Google Drive once you know the drills.

Note: Contents of this posting is based on one of Stackoverflow questions

1. Create file in Google Drive

Save file in any folder of your Google Drive. In my case, I put data.txt under Untitled folder.

2. Get shareable link of your file

One way to get access to your Google Drive file is via the shareable link. Press Get shareable link button and copy the link to your file.

3. Get file ID

Then, we create file ID from the shareable linked obtained in Step 2. In doing so, we use JavaScript. First, open javascript console in your Chrome browser (Press Ctrl + Shift + J).

Then, type in below JavaScript code to obtain file ID.

var url = "your_shareable_link_to_file"
function getIdFromUrl(url) { return url.match(/[-\w]{25,}/); }
getIdFromUrl(url)

Now, remember the string that comes first in resulting list. This is the file ID that you are going to use when importing file in Colab.

Update (March 2020)

Alternatively, the file ID can be also obtained from the link. The file ID is alphanumeric characters between /d/ and /view?usp=sharing. For instance, let’s assume the shareable like to the file we want to import is as below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HbEfAPN7nQVCXbvspwWayOSU7oPr/view?usp=sharing

Then, the file ID should be 1HbEfAPN7nQVCXbvspwWayOSU7oPr. I find this a more convenient way to get the file ID than the method above noawdays.

4. Install PyDrive

Now create and open any Google Colab document. First we need to install PyDrive, which can be easily done with pip install command.

!pip install PyDrive

5. Import modules

Some modules need to be imported in advance to create connection between Colab and Drive.

from pydrive.auth import GoogleAuth
from pydrive.drive import GoogleDrive
from google.colab import auth
from oauth2client.client import GoogleCredentials

6. Authenticate and create the PyDrive client

auth.authenticate_user()
gauth = GoogleAuth()
gauth.credentials = GoogleCredentials.get_application_default()
drive = GoogleDrive(gauth)

Authorize with your Google ID, and paste in the link that comes up and press Enter!

7. Get the file

Get the file using the Google Drive file ID that we created with JavaScript console in step 3.

downloaded = drive.CreateFile({'id':"your_file_ID"})   # replace the id with id of file you want to access
downloaded.GetContentFile('your_file_name.csv')        # replace the file name with your file

8. Read data

Now using Pandas, you can read data and save as DataFrame. As my file is in csv format, I have used read_csv() function, but you can replace it with read_excel() if it is in xlsx format.

import pandas as pd
data = pd.read_csv('your_file_name.csv')

9. Check & Finish

Check if your file is uploaded well, and start your journey with data imported!

Code

Code in this post can be exhibited by below link. \

• link