Google Drive Android API

Give your users access to their files, wherever they are, on any device. The Google Drive Android API makes it easier than ever to use Drive to store and sync user’s files between their mobile devices and the cloud. Simply use Drive like local file storage and the API will handle the syncing for you.

Explore the Google Drive Android API reference or visit developers.google.com/drive/android for more information about integrating Google Drive into your app.

Key Developer Features

Automatic syncing

The Google Drive Android API uses the local device storage to create, edit, and open files, then syncs them automatically when the device is connected to the Internet. If a user requests a file that isn’t already cached on the device, the Drive service downloads the file the next time the device connects.
Open a file

User interface components

Building your own user interface for selecting or creating files is a thing of the past. The Drive API includes activity builders for two of the most common user activities: opening files and creating files.
Create a file

Easily search for files

The query builder allows you to easily construct a query by joining together multiple parameters and filtering based on metadata. This allows you to easily display only relevant files, such as files shared with the user or files with a specific MIME type.
Query for a file

Getting Started

1. Get the Google Play services SDK

The Google Drive Android API is part of the Google Play services platform.

To get started, set up the Google Play services SDK.

2. Run the sample

Once you’ve set up the Google Play services SDK, you can run the Google Drive sample located in <android-sdk>/extras/google-play-services/samples/drive. However, before you can run the sample, you need to register your app in the Google Developers Console.

See Getting Started guide to learn how to get up and running with the Google Drive Android API.

3. Read the documentation

For quick access while developing your Android apps, the Google Drive API reference is available here on developer.android.com.

Detailed documentation for the Google Drive Android API is available with the rest of the Google Drive Platform documentation at developers.google.com/drive.