How do I download and save multiple files from google drive to a particular folder on my laptop using R and googledrive package

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I'm following the instructions in this post to download 2 csv files from my google drive to my computer. Here is the code provided -

library(googledrive)
library(purrr)

## store the URL you have
folder_url <- "https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B7tJg2i5HAo2c0VzVFVhLUdQcnM"

## identify this folder on Drive
## let googledrive know this is a file ID or URL, as opposed to file name
folder <- drive_get(as_id(folder_url))

## identify the csv files in that folder
csv_files <- drive_ls(folder, type = "csv")

## download them
walk(csv_files$id, ~ drive_download(as_id(.x)))

The instructions above download the csv files to my "documents" folder. I am trying to download the files to a particular folder on my laptop using a slight modification to the last bit of code

walk(csv_files$id, ~ drive_download(as_id(.x),
                                    path = "../Desktop/data_folder/,
                                    overwrite = TRUE))

Unfortunately, this is saving a single .xlsx file which does not contain any data and cannot be opened. How do I correct the code to save both files to a particular folder?

purrr r
1 Answers

The problem is that path parameter wants a full filename, not just a path to a directory. So by default it figures out the filename using goodledrive methods and uses it to create a file on your computer in your current working directory. But if you don't want this default behavior you should also provide the file name. So essentially there are two options:

  1. Set your working directory to the folder you want your files to be downloaded to before running the code you provided. (and then most likely it'll be a good idea to change it back)

  2. Rewrite the script so that path parameter is built using the googledrive filename. Something like this:

path <- "~/Documents/tmp/data_folder/"
for (i in seq_along(csv_files$name)) {
  drive_download(
    as_id(csv_files$id[[i]]),
    path = file.path(path, csv_files$name[[i]]),
    overwrite = TRUE
  )
}

Or if you prefer to use walk:

csv_files %>% 
  split(csv_files$id) %>% 
  walk(~drive_download(.$id, path = file.path(path, .$name), overwrite = TRUE))
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