How do I connect Android apps with Google Sheets spreadsheets?
It's a complex process, but it can be done! I wrote a blog post on getting the basics up and running. And I've also published an open-source project that is actually useful, but still quite minimal. It uses OAuth, and therefore can pull the permission directly from Android's permission model (no hardcoded email/password!).
You need something to start the "Choose account intent":
View.OnTouchListener mDelayHideTouchListener = new View.OnTouchListener() {
@Override
public boolean onTouch(View view, MotionEvent motionEvent) {
Intent intent = AccountPicker.newChooseAccountIntent(null, null, new String[]{"com.google"},
false, null, null, null, null);
startActivityForResult(intent, 1);
if (AUTO_HIDE) {
delayedHide(AUTO_HIDE_DELAY_MILLIS);
}
return false;
}
};
And then when that intent returns, you can try to use the token that was returned (although note, if it's the first time the user may have to explicitly authorize your program; that's the UserRecoverableAuthException):
protected void onActivityResult(final int requestCode, final int resultCode,
final Intent data) {
if (requestCode == 1 && resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
final String accountName = data.getStringExtra(AccountManager.KEY_ACCOUNT_NAME);
System.err.println(accountName);
(new AsyncTask<String, String,String>(){
@Override
protected String doInBackground(String... arg0) {
try {
// Turn account name into a token, which must
// be done in a background task, as it contacts
// the network.
String token =
GoogleAuthUtil.getToken(
FullscreenActivity.this,
accountName,
"oauth2:https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds https://docs.google.com/feeds");
System.err.println("Token: " + token);
// Now that we have the token, can we actually list
// the spreadsheets or anything...
SpreadsheetService s =
new SpreadsheetService("Megabudget");
s.setAuthSubToken(token);
// Define the URL to request. This should never change.
// (Magic URL good for all users.)
URL SPREADSHEET_FEED_URL = new URL(
"https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/spreadsheets/private/full");
// Make a request to the API and get all spreadsheets.
SpreadsheetFeed feed;
try {
feed = s.getFeed(SPREADSHEET_FEED_URL, SpreadsheetFeed.class);
List<SpreadsheetEntry> spreadsheets = feed.getEntries();
// Iterate through all of the spreadsheets returned
for (SpreadsheetEntry spreadsheet : spreadsheets) {
// Print the title of this spreadsheet to the screen
System.err.println(spreadsheet.getTitle().getPlainText());
}
} catch (ServiceException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
} catch (UserRecoverableAuthException e) {
// This is NECESSARY so the user can say, "yeah I want
// this app to have permission to read my spreadsheet."
Intent recoveryIntent = e.getIntent();
startActivityForResult(recoveryIntent, 2);
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (GoogleAuthException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}}).execute();
} else if (requestCode == 2 && resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
// After the user YAYs or NAYs our permission request, we are
// taken here, so if we wanted to grab the token now we could.
}
}
Thank you so so much Scorpion! It works!! I've been trying this for too long. Ok here is my solution: I started a new project and included these jars:
gdata-client-1.0
gdata-client-meta-1.0
gdata-core-1.0
gdata-spreadsheet-3.0
gdata-spreadsheet-meta-3.0
guava-13.0.1
and my code:
SpreadsheetService spreadsheet= new SpreadsheetService("v1");
spreadsheet.setProtocolVersion(SpreadsheetService.Versions.V3);
try {
spreadsheet.setUserCredentials("username", "password");
URL metafeedUrl = new URL("https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/spreadsheets/private/full");
SpreadsheetFeed feed = spreadsheet.getFeed(metafeedUrl, SpreadsheetFeed.class);
List<SpreadsheetEntry> spreadsheets = feed.getEntries();
for (SpreadsheetEntry service : spreadsheets) {
System.out.println(service.getTitle().getPlainText());
}
} catch (AuthenticationException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
of course this is executed in a different thread not in the main thread. There is no java documentation for OAuth 2.0 but I will try and if I can't do it I'll ask here. Again, thank you very much and I hope to help you when I work on this time enough. :)
Sample code for you without OAuth 2.0. But its recommended to perform OAuth as its good for the security purpose. You also have to add below permissions.
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCOUNT_MANAGER"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.AUTHENTICATE_ACCOUNTS"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE"/>
Sample Code:-
try {
SpreadsheetEntry spreadsheet;
service = new SpreadsheetService("Spreadsheet");
service.setProtocolVersion(SpreadsheetService.Versions.V3);
service.setUserCredentials("username", "password");//permission required to add in Manifest
URL metafeedUrl = new URL("https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/spreadsheets/private/full");
feed = service.getFeed(metafeedUrl, SpreadsheetFeed.class);
List<SpreadsheetEntry> spreadsheets = feed.getEntries();
if (spreadsheets.size() > 0) {
spreadsheet = spreadsheets.get(i);//Get your Spreadsheet
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
(Feb 2017) The question (and most answers) are now out-of-date as:
- GData APIs are the previous generation of Google APIs. While not all GData APIs have been deprecated, all modern Google APIs do not use the Google Data protocol
- Google released a new Google Sheets API (v4; not GData) in 2016, and
- Android Studio is now the preferred IDE over Eclipse. In order to use Google APIs, you need to get the Google APIs Client Library for Android (or for more general Java, the Google APIs Client Library for Java). Now you're set.
To start, the latest Sheets API is much more powerful than all older versions. The latest API provides features not available in older releases, namely giving developers programmatic access to a Sheet as if you were using the user interface (create frozen rows, perform cell formatting, resize rows/columns, add pivot tables, create charts, etc.).
That said, yeah, it's tough when there aren't enough good (working) examples floating around, right? In the official docs, we try to put "quickstart" examples in as many languages as possible to help get you going. In that spirit, here are the Android quickstart code sample as well as the more general Java Quickstart code sample. For convenience, here's the Sheets API JavaDocs reference.
Another answer suggested using OAuth2 for data authorization, which you can do with this auth snippet from the quickstart above, plus the right scope:
// Sheets RO scope
private static final String[] SCOPES = {SheetsScopes.SPREADSHEETS_READONLY};
:
// Initialize credentials and service object
mCredential = GoogleAccountCredential.usingOAuth2(
getApplicationContext(), Arrays.asList(SCOPES))
.setBackOff(new ExponentialBackOff());
If you're not "allergic" to Python, I've made several videos with more "real-world" examples using the Sheets API (non-mobile though):
- Migrating SQL data to a Sheet (code deep dive post)
- Formatting text using the Sheets API (code deep dive post)
- Generating slides from spreadsheet data (code deep dive post)
Finally, note that the Sheets API performs document-oriented functionality as described above. For file-level access, i.e. import, export etc. you'd use the Google Drive API instead; specifically for mobile, use the Google Drive Android API. Hope this helps!