How do I connect Claude to Google Drive?

Anthropic's connector documentation, read on 7 October 2026, says Google builds and runs this connector. Each person signs in with their own Google account, so Claude can reach only the files that account can open. The app spells the settings page the US way; we write Customise here.

• Open Customise, then Connectors, in claude.ai. In the desktop app, select Customise in the sidebar, then Connectors.
• Find Google Drive in the list and select Connect.
• Sign in to your Google account and grant the requested permissions. When it works, the Connect button changes to Disconnect.
• In a conversation, select + at the lower left of the message box, select Connectors, and turn Google Drive on. Then ask a question that needs your files.
• To attach one file yourself, select + and then Add from Google Drive, and search for the file by name.

With the connector on, the documentation says Claude can search your Drive, list recent files, check a file’s details and who it is shared with, and read its content. It reads Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, OpenDocument files, and PNG and JPEG images.

Two limits apply to every type. Content from a very large file can arrive incomplete, and Claude cannot read comments or suggested edits. Files you attach are converted: Docs to Markdown without images, Sheets to CSV with every tab, Slides to plain text. Google caps those exports at about 10 MB, and above that Claude gets the file’s name and details but not its content.

Anthropic's help centre article on Google Workspace connectors lists write actions as well: sharing, moving and trashing files, uploading, creating folders and saving files Claude produced. It says Claude asks for approval before each of these by default.

Only to a private project. In a shared project the Google Drive option is dimmed and reads Only accessible from private projects. In a private project, open its knowledge section, select Add files, then Google Drive, and pick or paste the file. Its content refreshes from Drive from time to time when you open the project. In an ordinary chat, Claude reads the current version each time you send a message.

On Team and Enterprise plans, an Owner or Primary Owner enables the connector for the organisation before members can sign in. If your Google Workspace blocks unknown apps, the help centre gives the admin path: admin.google.com, then Security, Access and data control, API controls, Manage third-party app access. There the admin adds Claude as an OAuth app, marks it Trusted and waits about 15 minutes before members reconnect.

Each connector has its own page under Customise, then Connectors. Under Tool permissions you can set each tool, or each group of tools, to Always allow, Needs approval or Blocked. Keep share, move and trash on Needs approval: a wrong share is hard to undo once someone outside your team has opened the file.

To stop Drive in one chat, switch its toggle off in the + menu. Disconnect signs Claude out of Google but leaves the connector listed; Remove, in the three-dot menu, takes it off your account.

Swfte does not replace Anthropic's Drive connector and is not affiliated with Anthropic or Google. For one person researching their own files, the connector is the right tool.

A workflow fits better when reading a file starts a business decision, such as checking a contract pack before a supplier is approved. In Swfte Studio, a workflow can call Claude through Connect, stop at an approval step for a named person, and keep a trace of each run with logs per step. On 7 October 2026 the integrations list on this site did not include a dedicated Google Drive integration, so check the hub for the storage system you use.

• Swfte Studio: Workflows with an approval step before an agent acts
• Integrations hub: Check which storage systems are covered

Facts about other vendors and about the terms on this page were read on the pages below on 7 October 2026. Vendor plans, names and menus change, so check the vendor’s page before you rely on a detail.