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Using Google Drive links inside a video
Using Google Drive links inside a video

How to use Google Drive with Shotstack

Derk Zomer avatar
Written by Derk Zomer
Updated over 3 months ago

Using Google Drive files inside your videos

You can use Google Drive files inside of your Edit or as a Merge Field, as long as the following conditions are met:

  1. General Access permissions are set to Anyone with a link.

  2. You use the direct download link

Setting the right permissions

For Shotstack to access the file it needs be publicly available for our service to download it. You can do this by setting the general access permissions to Anyone with a link.

Google Drive - General access permissions

Use the direct download link

Google Drive links normally direct you to a web page from which you can download the file, but as this is a website this will result in an error.

The Google Drive interface normally provides you with a shareable link using the Copy link button. This will not work with Shotstack as this link will direct you to an HTML page.

Google Drive Copy Link

To retrieve the right url you need to use a Google Drive direct link generation service or dynamically change the url from the web view format to the direct link format by adding the fileId to a direct download link:

From:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WtIIF_uSxVtffrno9uvtxPsnwn1l0kKj/view

To:

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1WtIIF_uSxVtffrno9uvtxPsnwn1l0kKj

You can also retrieve the correct URL using the Google Drive API by referencing the webContentLink.

Showing Google Drive files as placeholders in the Studio

Google Drive does not allow media files to be hot linked and shown in the Studio, regardless of permission settings.

We recommend using a placeholder service or an uploaded file until you are happy with what your video looks like, and then use your Google Drive links as part of the video creation process.

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