Google Drive Read

Read a file from Google Drive with optional CSV/TSV/JSON/JSONL/XML parsing. For Google Workspace files (Docs, Sheets, Slides), exports to the specified format before reading. Native files are read as-is.

Requires a Google Drive connection.

Configuration

Field	Description	Notes
Google Drive Connection	The connection to use	Required
File	The file to read	Required. Browse via the tree picker, or pass {{file.locator.file_id}} from upstream. Supports templates.
Export Format	Export format for Google Workspace files	Options: Default, PDF, Word (.docx), Plain Text, CSV, Excel (.xlsx). Only applies to Google Docs/Sheets/Slides; ignored for native files.
Parse Format	How to parse the downloaded body	raw (default), json, jsonl, csv, tsv, or xml

Output

Returns {file_id, name, content_type, size, parse_format, content} where:

Field	Description
file_id	The Drive file ID that was read
name	Filename from Drive metadata
content_type	MIME type from Drive (or the exported MIME when Export Format is set)
size	File size in bytes
parse_format	Echoes the parse_format setting
content	The body — string for raw, []map[string]any for csv/tsv/jsonl, map/[]any for json/xml

Google Workspace Files

Google Workspace files (Docs, Sheets, Slides) cannot be downloaded directly — they must be exported to a standard format. The Export Format field controls which:

File Type	Recommended Export Formats
Google Docs	PDF, Word (.docx), Plain Text
Google Sheets	CSV, Excel (.xlsx)
Google Slides	PDF

TIP

Reading a Google Sheet with Export Format CSV and Parse Format csv returns parsed rows ready for downstream processing — no extra Transform node needed.

Streaming

Per-item fan-out: when an upstream node emits multiple items (e.g. Google Drive List Files), the Read node downloads one file per item using {{ item.id }} (or whatever your templated File expression resolves to). Each download emits one summary item downstream with the wrapper above.