How to use Google Drive to host files

Once in a while you need a place to host your static files. Wouldn’t it be nice if there’s a free… oh! Google Drive!

Steps

1. The first step is, well, upload your file to Google Drive. Be sure the folder’s access type to “Anyone with the link”.

2. Right click on the file you want and click Get link.

3. A dialog box will open showing you the link to the file. This should look something like,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/yourfileid/view?usp=sharing

The yourfileid is your file ID which will be unique to that particular file. It’s 33 characters long and could contain alphanumeric characters, plus - and _. Copy this down somewhere. You’ll need it later.

4. Well, this is where you need your file ID. The URL of the file that’s accessible to anyone is

https://drive.google.com/uc?id=yourfileid

5. Done!

Note

This article is probably incomplete, but should serve its purpose for now.