Direct file access in Google Drive

For publicly shared files the sharing URL opens the respective file in Google document viewer. So if someone wants to escape the Google default viewer page then here is the trick to do that.

Using the below method, any ‘publicly shared file’ can be accessed directly without going through the Google viewer page. It is most likely hot-linking but not the same (reasons mentioned at the end of the post).

Publicly shared file URLs are like this :

Example:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3sWXguXdXt1NTBRQVR0SWRxY2c 

To make it direct access link to the respective file, just change the public URL in this format:

https://googledrive.com/host/<File-Code>

So the final link will be like:

https://googledrive.com/host/0B3sWXguXdXt1NTBRQVR0SWRxY2c 
Where: File-Code is 0B3sWXguXdXt1NTBRQVR0SWRxY2c 

It will provide direct access to the file itself. But this approach should be used with care as there are some disadvantages to it which is mentioned below.

Cons:

• Browser supported file type will open itself in the browser
• If opened in Browser, then you have to save it proper Human-readable name
• If not supported, the download will initiate and files are saved with the <File-Code>  with NO extensions. So proper monitoring is required while downloading such files.