gdURL.com - Direct Permalinks for Google Drive
I have been wanting to use an online storage service for a while for extra redundancy of all my years of digital photos and videos which I already backup on RAID-1 mirrored drives at home.
All the available options that can support the amount of data I have (over 105 GB) have always been too expensive. I love Dropbox and how well integrated it is with Windows Explorer and that it's supported on Linux, but they too just charge too much.
Then I found out Google Drive was finally released to the public. Not only are their prices are fantastic at $9.99/month for 200 GB, but you can pay on a month-to-month instead of one payment per year. So, I signed up and started uploading all my data. (FYI, they also provide 5 GB for free if you're interested.)
While I was exploring the available features, I discovered one huge feature missing from Drive that Dropbox offers: In Dropbox if you want to share a file or, for example, display it in an <img> tag online, you simply right click the file and "copy public link." Simple.
Sharing in Drive is good because you can share any file or folder without it having to be in a special "Public" directory. Also, when you share, the file/folder can be accessed via a "fancy" (or bloated and unnecessary) file viewer interface instead of just having a link directly to the raw file on Google's servers. On top of that, the link they provide you is only valid for a short while before it stops working. Ugh.
I don't know if Google plans on ever changing all that, but I did a bit of investigating and discovered there are some programmatic ways around their lack of direct file sharing. So I went ahead and put a website together to allow you to paste the share URL for a public Google Drive file, and you will be returned a simple, short, and most importantly permanent URL that points directly at the raw file instead of it wrapped in Google's file viewer.
I'm guessing I won't find too many Google Drive users 'round these parts, but if you do happen to use it and would like to try out this simple little service, please give her a go. The website is gdURL.com (as in "Google Drive URL," not "goddamned URL"
).
Here's an example of a file hosted at Google Drive and permalinked through gdURL:
All the available options that can support the amount of data I have (over 105 GB) have always been too expensive. I love Dropbox and how well integrated it is with Windows Explorer and that it's supported on Linux, but they too just charge too much.
Then I found out Google Drive was finally released to the public. Not only are their prices are fantastic at $9.99/month for 200 GB, but you can pay on a month-to-month instead of one payment per year. So, I signed up and started uploading all my data. (FYI, they also provide 5 GB for free if you're interested.)
While I was exploring the available features, I discovered one huge feature missing from Drive that Dropbox offers: In Dropbox if you want to share a file or, for example, display it in an <img> tag online, you simply right click the file and "copy public link." Simple.
Sharing in Drive is good because you can share any file or folder without it having to be in a special "Public" directory. Also, when you share, the file/folder can be accessed via a "fancy" (or bloated and unnecessary) file viewer interface instead of just having a link directly to the raw file on Google's servers. On top of that, the link they provide you is only valid for a short while before it stops working. Ugh.
I don't know if Google plans on ever changing all that, but I did a bit of investigating and discovered there are some programmatic ways around their lack of direct file sharing. So I went ahead and put a website together to allow you to paste the share URL for a public Google Drive file, and you will be returned a simple, short, and most importantly permanent URL that points directly at the raw file instead of it wrapped in Google's file viewer.
I'm guessing I won't find too many Google Drive users 'round these parts, but if you do happen to use it and would like to try out this simple little service, please give her a go. The website is gdURL.com (as in "Google Drive URL," not "goddamned URL"
).Here's an example of a file hosted at Google Drive and permalinked through gdURL:
13 Comments
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
I can understand why google did that - they don't want to be a general URL file host, but it does seem that Dropbox still "gets it" a bit more.
Steve Jobs said DropBox was a "feature" not a business, but they seem to be doing pretty well and have an easier model to understand than Apple's iCloud.
I'll give Google drive a go - and give gdurl a try too.
FantomasI cant post images but here's a link. Which seems to work just fine!
DeanoIs Google Drive essentially Google Docs? I installed it on my tablet so I can take notes and know that they will be accessible from the computer but beyond that I don't think they have communicated very well what the whole thing is.
lucky760@Deano - They've folded Google Docs into Google Drive. In fact, even your Gmail and Picasa storage space are all part of your free 5 GB at Google Drive.
But as far as Docs goes, since all your docs are essentially just files stored online, it makes sense to just store them in your Drive account. The good thing is any Docs-oriented files in your Drive space don't count toward your allotted storage space.
I agree they haven't helped to make sense of all this. Most of what I know about it I just gleaned.
Deano@lucky760 gmail is part of drive? But my gmail says I have 10GB of total space.
I just saw where they become a dropbox competitor - you can download some software for your pc to enable syncing. Still, not sure I want my Office docs converted into Google Docs, surely I'd lose some compatibility?
lucky760@Deano - Ah, I was totally misremembering. Actually, you get 5GB for Drive, 1GB for Picasa, and 10GB for Gmail, but if you pay for Drive, your Gmail automatically gets increased to 25GB. Maybe I was thinking of Amazon's service where all your MP3s stored there don't count toward your limit.
The desktop app is very good. If you don't want your docs converted, you can just leave that option disabled. That's what I did.
Deano@lucky760 excellent thanks for clarifying that.
gunnarforsgrenOne nice thing is that a GDurl for a file on Google Drive will remain the same even if you later move that file to another folder on Google Drive. I like that folder independence; I can reorganize my file structure on Google Drive and any previously published files will show up anyway when retrieved using the GDurl´s. Smokem while you got em I guess. As mentioned Google might not fancy becoming a file host.
lucky760Astute observation! I wasn't even aware of that.
One nice thing is that a GDurl for a file on Google Drive will remain the same even if you later move that file to another folder on Google Drive. I like that folder independence; I can reorganize my file structure on Google Drive and any previously published files will show up anyway when retrieved using the GDurl´s. Smokem while you got em I guess. As mentioned Google might not fancy becoming a file host.
gunnarforsgrenI am looking at how an Android app I develop could access your service with an URL to get a gdURL in return ? Hints appreciated.
BenKeyYou can use gdriveurl.com, it got updated and now allows users to log in with their google drive account and share the list of files instantly, getting for each file "View" & "Download" short permalink.
There's also the old solution (login to Google Drive, set everything to "Public on web", copy share link, convert it into the gdriveurl.com textarea in the homepage), but it's just a waste of time, you should try "MyDrive" api.
You should write a post about it. It's more user/mobile friendly and complete.
kala1If i open www.gdurl.com then i see only white page.
How I can back gdurl?
lucky760Hi @kala1- The site is and has been loading properly. There are still lots of URLs created every hour. Were you able to see it previously? Where in the world are you loading the site from?
If i open www.gdurl.com then i see only white page.
How I can back gdurl?
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