Connect Google Drive and pick files

Connect Google Drive

SaysHere then asks Google only for the files you pick (Google's drive.file permission), separately from signing in. That permission also covers changing those files, and SaysHere only reads them. It reads only files you own.

1. 1

   Open Integrations and press Connect Google Drive on Google Drive's row.

   Google's page opens and asks you to allow access.

2. 2

   Choose your Google account and allow access.

   Google sends you back to Integrations, which says "Google Drive is connected. Pick the files SaysHere reads."

Pick files

Google's file picker is Google's own. Your browser loads its script from apis.google.com only when you press to open the picker, on the Integrations page or in Import on the Notes page, and that script loads the picker's code from apis.google.com too. The picker then opens inside SaysHere's page, as a frame of Google's page at docs.google.com. You choose in Google's frame, signed in to Google. The page holds the access token in its memory while the picker is open and stores it nowhere on your device. It lists the files you own of the kinds SaysHere reads: Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, PDF, Word (.docx), text and Markdown files. You can pick up to 50 files at a time. The picker offers no folders. Import on the Notes page opens the same picker for a Google Drive link, and the files you pick there become notes.

1. 1

   Press Pick files on Google Drive's row.

   The row says "Loading Google's file picker." until Google's file picker opens.

2. 2

   Choose the files in the picker and press Select.

   The row says how many files SaysHere added and lists each file it did not add, with the reason under its name.

When a file is not added

SaysHere adds a file you own that holds text it can read, up to 10 MB and 1,000,000 characters of text. It reads a Google Doc's text and leaves out its pictures. When a Doc's pictures take it past 10 MB, SaysHere adds the Doc as plain text. It does not add a file someone else owns, a file Google does not let it open, or a kind it cannot read, and it adds a file only once to a workspace. Once your workspace holds 200 documents, or reaches your plan's limit of text, the files after it are not added. If Drive cannot hand a file over at that moment, the row says to try again in a minute: press Pick files and pick the files it did not add.

What SaysHere keeps

SaysHere keeps each file's name and text as a document in the workspace you add it to, with the file's id and address on Drive, and reads the file again once a day while you stay connected. A file you delete on Drive, or can no longer read, is deleted here at the next day's read. If a file grows past 10 MB on Drive, SaysHere keeps the text it read before. Google Drive's row counts each file you picked once, however many workspaces hold it, and says when SaysHere last checked them.

When Google no longer accepts the connection

If you remove SaysHere's access on your Google Account, or Google stops honouring the connection for another reason, Google Drive's row says "Google no longer accepts this connection." with the day SaysHere deletes its copies. If Google stops honouring the connection, its files are deleted 14 days later unless you connect again. Press Connect again on the row and allow access on Google's page to keep them.

Who can open the files

Your Google Drive connection is yours alone. It shows on Integrations in every workspace you open, and only you can pick files with it. Pick files adds them to the workspace Integrations is open in. The people who can see where you add a file can open its text. Your choice of where to add it also covers each later version SaysHere reads. Leaving a team, or being removed from one, deletes the files you added there, including those you shared with the team. They come from your own Google account, so they leave with you.

One trip to Google at a time

Finish one trip to Google before you start another, or before you connect GitHub, in the same browser. If you start a second before the first comes back to Integrations, one of them does not finish, and Integrations says so. Start it again from its row.