Here we install the required Python libraries and create a test Sheet to make sure everything works. More information can be found in the Google documentation here:

Download Python (mainly for Windows Users)

Python 3 comes standard on Linux and macOS. But Windows users likely do not have it installed as a default. If you need Python and the pip installer, go to https://www.python.org/downloads/ and download the latest version of Python 3.x for your operating system.

Install Python Libraries

We need two libraries:

• google-auth-oauthlib - needed for authentication
• google-api-python-client - the main Google API client library

which we can install with pip (which is installed with Python 3). Go to a command prompt and type:

pip3 install google-api-python-client google-auth-oauthlib

pip3 install google-api-python-client google-auth-oauthlib

Create A Test Sheet

To test everything, let's go ahead and create a Sheet.

Log in to your Google account and go to Docs and create a new Sheet and give it a name like Test Sheet:

Under File -> Share, add the "client_email" address from the .json file created in the previous step. You can open the .json file in a text editor to find this value.

You'll also need the spreadsheetID which you can get from the URL. It is the big long gibberish value between "/d/" and "/edit". (more info)

Run Example

Then, try running this example:

from google.oauth2.service_account import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build

SERVICE_ACCOUNT_FILE = 'YOUR_CREDENTIALS_FILE.json'
SPREADSHEET_ID = 'YOUR_SPREADSHEET_ID'
SCOPES = ['https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds',
          'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive']

credentials = Credentials.from_service_account_file(SERVICE_ACCOUNT_FILE, scopes=SCOPES)

service = build('sheets', 'v4', credentials=credentials)

sheet = service.spreadsheets()

range = 'A1'
values = [ ['test'], ]
body = {'values' : values}

sheet.values().append(spreadsheetId=SPREADSHEET_ID, 
                      valueInputOption='RAW',
                      range=range,
                      body=body).execute()

from google.oauth2.service_account import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build

SERVICE_ACCOUNT_FILE = 'YOUR_CREDENTIALS_FILE.json'
SPREADSHEET_ID = 'YOUR_SPREADSHEET_ID'
SCOPES = ['https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds',
          'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive']

credentials = Credentials.from_service_account_file(SERVICE_ACCOUNT_FILE, scopes=SCOPES)

service = build('sheets', 'v4', credentials=credentials)

sheet = service.spreadsheets()

range = 'A1'
values = [ ['test'], ]
body = {'values' : values}

sheet.values().append(spreadsheetId=SPREADSHEET_ID, 
                      valueInputOption='RAW',
                      range=range,
                      body=body).execute()

Replace YOUR_CREDENTIALS_FILE with the actual name of your .json file and YOUR_SPREADSHEET_ID with what you got from the URL. Save the above as something like gspread_test.py and then try running it:

python3 gspread_test.py

python3 gspread_test.py

It should run without any errors. If you then go look at your spreadsheet, you should see test in cell A1, like this:

If any errors do occur, try and troubleshoot them. Hopefully they will contain helpful messages.

If the above test worked, move on to the next step.