Search code examples
google-drive-apicomments

Apply original comments in a copied document

I am trying to make a copy of a document with comments by using the Google drive api. The copy itself succeeds, but the copied document is created without any comments. I tried to loop over all comments in the original document and apply those on the copied document to overcome this, and this does apply all content of all comments, but with me as the author for the comments. I want the original author to also be the author of the comment in the copy.

I understand that this behavior probably is wanted, else I could add comments that seem to come from someone else, but if I open any document with comments in google drive, there is a File -> Make a copy option that has a checkbox to copy all comments:

enter image description here

If I do that, a new copy is created, and comments are added from the original author (with a note that says the comment is copied from original document). Is there any way to do this from the API?

Solution

  • First of all, answering your doubt about the comment you made. Yes, all languages wrap the REST-calls to the API.

    So, I was checking the Drive API using the Try this API and the comments can't be copied as you would want.

    Therefore, as a workaround(That's why I asked you about the language you are using, to be able to make an example code), you could use a service account to impersonate any user you want and in that way, the comment will be registered as if he/she did it.

    I will list you a series of links that will help you to set up a service account, before being able to use it.

    1) Enable APIs you want(in this case only the Drive API)

    2) Create the service account and credentials.

    3) Delegate domain-wide authority to your service.

    4) Then you can use the following code to generate a new comment as the user you are impersonating:

    from googleapiclient import discovery, errors
from httplib2 import Http
from oauth2client import file, client, tools
from google.oauth2 import service_account

SERVICE_ACCOUNT_FILE = 'service_account.json'
SCOPES = ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive']

# The user we want to "impersonate"
USER_EMAIL = "impersonated-user@your-domain.com"

# Set the credentials using the .json and the SCOPES
credentials = service_account.Credentials.\
    from_service_account_file(SERVICE_ACCOUNT_FILE, scopes= SCOPES)
delegated_credentials = credentials.with_subject(USER_EMAIL)

try:
    # Insert the comment
    service = discovery.build('drive', 'v3', credentials=delegated_credentials)
    service.comments().create(fileId="your file id", fields="*", body={
        "content": "TESTTT"
    }).execute()

except errors.HttpError as err:
        print('\n---------------You have the following error-------------')
        print(err)
        print('---------------You have the following error-------------\n')

    Notice

    Service Accounts are only available if you have a G Suite account and you have admin´s access.

    Docs

    For building the code I passed you, I got help from these topics: