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Google Drive feeds your Drive folders and shared drives into Brink’s Document Center: files are versioned, parsed (with OCR for scans), classified, and made searchable with page-level citations. Who can connect: organization owners and admins for a shared connection; any member can connect their own Drive from Profile → My integrations.

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Connect Google Drive

1

Open Integrations

On the Integrations page, click the Google Drive card, then Connect Google Drive.For a personal connection, go to Profile → My integrations and click Connect on Google Drive instead.
Integrations page with the Google Drive drawer open

The Google Drive drawer — Connect Google Drive, and the Connection method section below it

2

Authorize with Google

Sign in and approve access. Brink asks for read-only access to Drive and for your email address — it never writes, renames, or deletes anything in Drive.Use an account that can already see the folders and shared drives you want covered: Brink’s access follows exactly what that account can see.
3

Bind folders

Brink returns you to the Integrations page and opens Bind folders to a project automatically. Pick the Project, tick what Brink should sync, and click Bind n folders.The list offers My Drive first, then its top-level folders, then every shared drive the account can see. Choose Skip for now if you would rather bind later.
Binding My Drive or a whole shared drive is the safest choice if your folder structure gets reorganized — everything underneath stays covered.
An organization Google Drive connection with no folder binding syncs nothing at all — Brink will not walk an entire company Drive and publish it org-wide. Bind at least one folder to finish the setup.
To add bindings later, open the Google Drive card, and on the account click Bind folders — the same picker opens. You can also bind from a project’s Integrations tab on the Projects page.

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What gets synced

Every file in each bound folder or shared drive, including all of its subfolders, flows into the Document Center — stored, versioned, read page by page (with OCR for scans), and made searchable, keeping the page and line behind every citation.
  • Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are exported to PDF so they can be read and cited like any other document.
  • Other Google-native items — Forms, Drawings, My Maps, Sites, and shortcuts — are skipped: there is no document body to index.
  • Unchanged files are skipped. Brink compares each file’s version against what it already holds, so a re-sync downloads only what actually changed.
  • Deletions carry over. A file deleted or moved to the Drive trash is marked deleted in Brink, and so is a file moved out of a bound folder.
Very large files are recorded by name and location but not read: Brink’s per-file limit is 300 MB by default, and Google’s own export limit means a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide deck over 10 MB lands as metadata only.

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Use your own Google app

By default Brink connects through Brink’s own Google app. Organization owners and admins can instead point Google Drive at their own Google Cloud OAuth client — useful when your Google Workspace policy only allows internal apps to access Drive. Open Integrations → Google Drive → Connection method. The card shows which app is in use (Brink’s app, badged Default, or Your own Google Drive app, badged In use). Click Use your own Google Drive developer app to expand the panel.
Google Drive connection method panel with redirect URI and client credential fields

Connection method — the Redirect URI to copy, and the two credential fields

Pointing Google Drive at your own app does not affect Gmail or Google Calendar — they keep using Brink’s Google app.

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Create the OAuth client in Google Cloud

You’ll need a Google account with access to the Google Cloud Console. It takes about 10 minutes, once per organization.
1

Create a project and enable the Drive API

In the Google Cloud Console, create a project (or pick an existing one), then open APIs & Services → Library, search for Google Drive API, and click Enable.
2

Configure the consent screen

Under APIs & Services → OAuth consent screen, set the user type to Internal if your organization uses Google Workspace. Internal apps are limited to accounts in your own domain and need no review from Google.
Choosing External means Google treats the Drive scope as restricted and requires app verification before people outside your test-user list can connect. Internal is the right choice for a company connector.
Add the scopes Brink uses — https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.readonly and https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email. Both are read-only.
3

Copy Brink's Redirect URI

In Brink, open Integrations → Google Drive → Connection method → Use your own Google Drive developer app and copy the value under Redirect URI — add this to your app’s allowed redirect URIs.
4

Create the OAuth client ID

Go to APIs & Services → Credentials → Create credentials → OAuth client ID. Choose application type Web application, give it a recognizable name such as Brink Connector, and under Authorised redirect URIs click Add URI and paste Brink’s Redirect URI. It must match character-for-character.Click Create. Google shows the Client ID and Client secret — copy both.

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Save it in Brink

1

Paste the credentials

Back in the Brink drawer, paste the values into Google Drive OAuth client ID and Google Drive OAuth client secret, then click Save credentials. The secret is stored encrypted and write-only — once saved it is only ever shown masked.Only the fields you fill in are saved, so you can rotate the secret later without retyping the client ID.
2

Connect

Click Connect Google Drive and authorize as usual. Existing connections keep working; the next connect uses your app.
To go back, click Use Brink’s app instead in the same panel and confirm.
Changing credentials on an already-connected account may invalidate the existing authorization. If the connection then shows Needs attention, click Reconnect to re-authorize against the new app.
If something goes wrong: a “redirect URI mismatch” error means the URI in Google Cloud doesn’t exactly match the one in Brink’s drawer — re-copy it. “Access blocked: this app is not verified” usually means the consent screen is set to External with the restricted Drive scope. And if folders are missing after connecting, the Google account you authorized with cannot see them — connect with an account that can, or share the folder with it.

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Notes

  • Google Drive syncs on the regular schedule, roughly every 15 minutes. You can force one at any time with Sync now.
  • A personal Google Drive connection with no folder binding covers your whole Drive, and everything from it stays visible only to you.
  • Moving an entire folder into a bound folder can take until the next full sync for its existing files to appear; the folder itself is picked up right away.
  • Disconnecting revokes Brink’s access with Google and deletes the stored credentials.