Creating empty spreadsheets in Google Drive using Drive API

The api reference to create spreadsheet is at https://developers.google.com/sheets/reference/rest/v4/spreadsheets/create.

The code snippet to create a new spreadsheet is as follows.

String[] SCOPES = { SheetsScopes.SPREADSHEETS };

GoogleAccountCredential credential = GoogleAccountCredential.usingOAuth2(
        getApplicationContext(),
        Arrays.asList(SCOPES)).setBackOff(new ExponentialBackOff());
credential.setSelectedAccountName("[email protected]");

HttpTransport transport = AndroidHttp.newCompatibleTransport();
JsonFactory jsonFactory = JacksonFactory.getDefaultInstance();

com.google.api.services.sheets.v4.Sheets service =
    new com.google.api.services.sheets.v4.Sheets.Builder(
        transport,
        jsonFactory,
        credential)
    .setApplicationName("Google Sheets API Android Quickstart")
    .build();

Spreadsheet spreadsheet = new Spreadsheet();
SpreadsheetProperties properties = new SpreadsheetProperties();
properties.setTitle("SpreadSheetTitle");
spreadsheet.setProperties(properties);

service.spreadsheets().create(spreadsheet).execute()

You can do this using the Drive API by setting the MIME type to application/vnd.google-apps.spreadsheet:

To do this in Python:

from apiclient.discovery import build
service = build('drive', 'v2')

import httplib2
credentials = ... # Obtain OAuth 2.0 credentials
http = credentials.authorize(httplib2.Http())

body = {
  'mimeType': 'application/vnd.google-apps.spreadsheet',
  'title': 'Name of Spreadsheet',
}
file = service.files().insert(body=body).execute(http=http)
# or for version 3 it would be
# file = service.files().create(body=body).execute(http=http)

Head over to the Google APIs Explorer to try it out!

(Jul 2016) BossyLobster's answer above is still valid (as Drive API v2 has not been deprecated [yet]). However, below are more modern ways of doing the same thing and some videos to help with understanding:

Authorization boilerplate for both examples below

from googleapiclient import discovery
from httplib2 import Http
from oauth2client import file, client, tools

store = file.Storage('storage.json')
creds = store.get()
if not creds or creds.invalid:
    flow = client.flow_from_clientsecrets('client_secret.json', SCOPES)
    creds = tools.run_flow(flow, store)

NOTE: to create your API project and OAuth2 credentials as well as download those credentials to the client_secret.json (or client_id.json) file, go to the Google Developers Console.

• To learn how to use the Developers Console, see this video.
• To walk through this boilerplate authorization code, see this video. (NOTE: the boilerplate above is slightly newer/improved from the code in the video)
• To get an intro to using the Google Drive API v2 (listing your Drive files), see this video.
• To learn about the Google Drive API v3 (up/downloading files), see this blogpost & video. (NOTE: v2 & v3 live side-by-side... v2 not deprecated yet; v3: fewer API calls, better performance vs. v2)
• To learn about the Google Sheets API v4 (migrating SQL data to a Sheet), see this blogpost & video.

Create new/blank Sheet w/Google Drive API v3 (& v2)

# above: SCOPES = 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file'
DRIVE = discovery.build('drive', 'v3', http=creds.authorize(Http()))
data = {
    'name': 'My new Sheet',
    'mimeType': 'application/vnd.google-apps.spreadsheet',
}
sheet = DRIVE.files().create(body=data).execute() # insert() for v2

Create new/blank Sheet w/Google Sheets API v4

# above: SCOPES = 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets'
SHEETS = discovery.build('sheets', 'v4', http=creds.authorize(Http()))
data = {'properties': {'title': 'My new Sheet'}}
sheet = SHEETS.spreadsheets().create(body=data).execute()

Now you may ask, "Why are there two different ways of creating a blank Sheet?" To put it succinctly, the Sheets API is meant primarily for spreadsheet-oriented operations, i.e., inserting data, reading spreadsheet rows, cell formatting, creating charts, adding pivot tables, etc., not file-oriented requests like create/delete and import/export, where the Drive API is the correct one to use. It just so happens that create is sort-of both, hence why there are two ways of doing it.