Downloading public files from Google Drive with curl or wget doesn't work — Google serves a confirmation page for large files, and the URL formats are a mess.
gdown gets around that:
- Skips the virus-scan confirmation page so large downloads actually finish
- Downloads folders recursively
- Exports Google Docs/Sheets/Slides as PDF, DOCX, CSV, etc.
- Resumes partial downloads with
--continue - Also works with plain HTTP/HTTPS URLs as a curl/wget replacement
Requires Python 3.10 or later.
pip install gdown
Or with uv:
uv tool install gdown
# Just paste a Google Drive URL gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1l_5RK28JRL19wpT22B-DY9We3TVXnnQQ # Or copy-paste a share link directly gdown 'https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9P1L--7Wd2vU3VUVlFnbTgtS2c/view?usp=sharing'
# Download by URL gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1l_5RK28JRL19wpT22B-DY9We3TVXnnQQ # Download by file ID gdown 1l_5RK28JRL19wpT22B-DY9We3TVXnnQQ # Download from a share link gdown 'https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9P1L--7Wd2vU3VUVlFnbTgtS2c/view?usp=sharing' # Save to a specific path gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B9P1L--7Wd2vU3VUVlFnbTgtS2c -O /tmp/spam.txt # Resolve the filename (with its real extension) without downloading gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B9P1L--7Wd2vU3VUVlFnbTgtS2c --json
--json is in beta and its output format may change in a future release; pass
--quiet to silence the beta warning in scripts. The output is an array of
{url, path} entries, where path is the filename Google Drive reports. This
lets you choose a name while keeping the original extension:
url="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B9P1L--7Wd2vU3VUVlFnbTgtS2c" filename=$(gdown "$url" --json | jq -r '.[0].path') gdown "$url" -O "my_name.${filename##*.}"
# Download an entire folder gdown https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15uNXeRBIhVvZJIhL4yTw4IsStMhUaaxl -O /tmp/folder --folder # List folder contents as a JSON array (each entry has url and path) gdown https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15uNXeRBIhVvZJIhL4yTw4IsStMhUaaxl --folder --json # Filter by path and download matches gdown https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15uNXeRBIhVvZJIhL4yTw4IsStMhUaaxl --folder --json \ | jq -r '.[] | select(.path | test("shad")) | .url' \ | xargs -n1 gdown
# Download a Google Slides file (default: pptx) gdown "https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15umvZKlsJ3094HNg5S4vJsIhxcFlyTeK/edit?usp=sharing" # Export as PDF instead gdown "https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15umvZKlsJ3094HNg5S4vJsIhxcFlyTeK/edit" --format pdf
Default export formats: Docs → docx, Sheets → xlsx, Slides → pptx.
# Resume a partially downloaded file gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1l_5RK28JRL19wpT22B-DY9We3TVXnnQQ --continue # Limit download speed gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1l_5RK28JRL19wpT22B-DY9We3TVXnnQQ --speed 10MB # Download via proxy gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1l_5RK28JRL19wpT22B-DY9We3TVXnnQQ --proxy http://proxy:8080
# Skip TLS certificate verification gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1l_5RK28JRL19wpT22B-DY9We3TVXnnQQ --no-check-certificate # Don't use cookies from ~/.cache/gdown/cookies.txt gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1l_5RK28JRL19wpT22B-DY9We3TVXnnQQ --no-cookies # Use a custom User-Agent gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1l_5RK28JRL19wpT22B-DY9We3TVXnnQQ --user-agent "MyApp/1.0"
gdown https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/archive/refs/tags/v4.0.0.tar.gz -O - --quiet | tar zxvf -gdown also works with regular URLs, not just Google Drive:
gdown https://httpbin.org/ip -O ip.json
Note
For Google Drive URLs, gdown automatically extracts the file ID and downloads the actual file. Use curl or wget to download the raw HTML page instead.
import gdown # Download a file url = "https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1l_5RK28JRL19wpT22B-DY9We3TVXnnQQ" gdown.download(url=url, output="fcn8s_from_caffe.npz") # Download by file ID gdown.download(id="0B9P1L--7Wd2vNm9zMTJWOGxobkU", output="output.npz") # Download from a share link url = "https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9P1L--7Wd2vNm9zMTJWOGxobkU/view?usp=sharing" gdown.download(url=url, output="output.npz") # Download with hash verification and caching gdown.cached_download( url=url, path="output.npz", hash="md5:fa837a88f0c40c513d975104edf3da17", postprocess=gdown.extractall, ) # Track download progress def on_progress(bytes_so_far: int, bytes_total: int | None) -> None: if bytes_total is not None: print(f"\r{bytes_so_far / bytes_total * 100:.1f}%", end="") gdown.download(url=url, output="output.npz", quiet=True, progress=on_progress) # Download a folder url = "https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15uNXeRBIhVvZJIhL4yTw4IsStMhUaaxl" gdown.download_folder(url=url) # Download a folder by ID gdown.download_folder(id="15uNXeRBIhVvZJIhL4yTw4IsStMhUaaxl")
Make sure the file sharing is set to "Anyone with the link".
Google throttles downloads when too many people access the same file. If you can still open the file in your browser, try exporting cookies:
- Install a browser extension like Get cookies.txt LOCALLY
- Export
cookies.txtand move it to~/.cache/gdown/cookies.txt - Run the download again
Once the file is in place, gdown loads it automatically (no extra flags needed).
Google Drive terminates connections after approximately 1 hour for large files.
Use --continue to resume, and retry until the download completes:
gdown --continue https://drive.google.com/uc?id=<file_id>
Yes. It works with any public HTTP/HTTPS URL.
git clone https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown.git cd gdown make setup # install dependencies make test # run tests make lint # run linters
MIT (LICENSE)