Connect Claude to Google Drive

At the end of each month I open a Drive folder of invoices, open every PDF, and copy the number, the amount, the due date and whether it was paid into a spreadsheet. It is slow, and the mistakes are always the same: an invoice the supplier sent twice, and a total that quietly adds euros to dollars.

Claude can read the folder for you once the Google Drive connector is on. I built a demo folder to trip it up: seven invoices, one of them sent twice, one already paid, one in euros, one a scan with no text in it, plus two quotes, a page of meeting notes and a photo of a till receipt. One plain sentence got back a table and the right totals, USD 815 and EUR 180 still to pay, in 42 seconds.

This finding is free. It shows the setup on video, what the connector read correctly without being told, and the one kind of file it could not read at all.

What the Google Drive connector can read

With the connector on, Claude can search your Drive by name, content, type, date and folder, and read Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, and PDFs, including a scanned PDF with no text layer. It sees what your account sees, which includes files other people share with you.

Reading happens without asking. Anything that changes your Drive, such as creating, copying, sharing or trashing a file, waits for you to approve it in claude.ai first. You can see and change that per tool under Customize, Connectors.

What “add up my invoices” got right without being told

I expected the plain prompt to fail and wrote a longer one to fix it. It did not fail. Asked only to “add up the invoices”, Claude counted the invoice that was sent twice once and said why, left out the one marked paid, kept euros and dollars as two totals rather than converting, flagged the overdue one, and left the quotes out because “they aren’t bills”.

Asked for “just the number”, it still answered in two currencies, with one line on what it had left out. The longer prompt is still in this finding, because a table with a file name per row is what you check the total against.

Why a photo of a receipt comes back empty

The one file it could not read was a photographed receipt, saved as PNG. Claude said so rather than guessing: “Drive didn’t return any readable text from it, so I couldn’t get the amount.” Asked to look at the image itself, it explained that the connector hands it the picture only as raw data it cannot view.

A scanned invoice saved as PDF, with no text in it at all, was read correctly. So the fix is in how receipts get into Drive, and the finding shows it.

Quick start

For when you just want the connector on and one folder read properly.

1. Open claude.ai and sign in. Connectors are set up on the web, and they then work in any chat on any device.
2. Open Customize, then Connectors. Find Google Drive under Discover.
3. Read the tool list on the connector page. It can create, copy, share and trash files, so it is not a read-only connector.
4. Press Connect to Claude. Google’s own screen opens.
5. Choose your account and press Continue twice. Claude receives a token, never your password.
6. Name one folder in every prompt. Otherwise Claude searches your whole Drive, including files shared with you.
7. Keep receipts as PDF, not photos. A scanned PDF is read; a PNG photo is not.
8. Ask for a table when you need to check the total. One row per file, with the file name.

Connecting Google Drive, on video

Thirty seconds, from Customize to a connected Drive. Google’s approval screens are not filmed, because they show the address of whoever is signing in; a card in the video marks where they appear.

Google calls the app Claude for Google Drive. You pick your account, confirm the sign-in, and see a summary of the access it asks for; Continue on the last two screens brings you back to claude.ai, connected. The connector page also carries Anthropic’s own note: only use connectors from developers you trust. This one is published by Google.

What the connector can and cannot do

It can search. By name, by text inside the file, by type, by date and by folder. A folder name in the prompt is what keeps the search inside it.

It can read documents and PDFs. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, and PDFs, including a scan with no text layer: on the demo, an image-only invoice was read to the cent.

It cannot read photos. A PNG receipt came back as data Claude could not view. It said so, and suggested attaching the image to the chat instead.

It can change files, with your approval. Copy, create, share, trash and update are all there, and each waits for Allow once by default. Six reading tools run without asking.

It sees what you see. Files other people share with you are searchable too. In a Drive shared with a team, a vague search can pull in someone else’s folder.

Totalling a folder of invoices

The demo ran against a folder called demo-f006: seven invented invoices as PDFs, one of them a scan and one sent twice, two quotes, a page of meeting notes and a photo of a receipt. Replace the name with your own folder.

Step 1: Ask the plain question

Add up the invoices in my demo-f006 folder.

1. Read the table. One row per invoice: number, supplier, amount and status. On the demo, six invoices from seven files.
2. Read what it counted once. “INV-2291 appears twice … I counted it once. Counting it twice would add USD 650 by mistake.”
3. Read the totals. USD 934 in all, USD 815 and EUR 180 still to pay, with the paid PixelTools invoice left out and the currencies not converted.
4. Read what it left out. The two quotes, the notes, and the receipt photo it could not read.

This took 42 seconds with the scans in the folder, and 14 seconds before they were added.

Step 2: Ask for the rows, when you need to check

The plain question already came back as a table. This longer prompt, which was not part of the recorded runs, asks for the file name on every row, so each figure can be traced to a file.

In my Google Drive folder demo-f006, read every invoice. Give me a table with
one row per file: file name, supplier, invoice number, amount, currency, due
date, and paid or unpaid. Flag any invoice number that appears more than once
and anything overdue as of today. Then give the total still to pay, per
currency, counting each invoice number once and leaving out what is paid.

1. Compare the file names with the folder. Every file should be either a row or named as left out.
2. Open one PDF and check its row. The first time, to see that nothing was invented.

Step 3: Ask across document types

Which quotes in demo-f006 are still waiting for a reply, and what is still open
from the Becker Shop call notes?

1. Check that it read the Google Docs as well as the PDFs. On the demo it named the one quote still waiting (Q-014, USD 1,400), the one accepted, and the two actions and the open question from the notes, in 18 seconds.
2. Read its caveats. It noticed the notes said “by Friday” and were written on a Friday, and said the deadline could be today or next week.

Getting receipts into Drive so Claude can read them

A photo of a receipt is the one thing the connector could not read. A scanned PDF of the same kind of paper was read without trouble.

1. Scan to PDF instead of taking a photo. The Google Drive app on a phone has a scan button that saves a PDF straight into a folder.
2. Or keep the PDF the shop emails you. Save it to the same folder.
3. For a photo you already have, attach it to the chat. Claude reads images attached directly; it just cannot see them through Drive.

Ready-made prompts

Twelve prompts in the same shape: they name a folder, ask for rows when the total matters, and ask which files could not be read.

Download drive-prompts.md Download drive-prompts.txt

# Prompts for Claude with the Google Drive connector

Change the parts in CAPITALS. Every prompt names one folder, asks for rows
before totals, and asks where each figure comes from, because a number without
a file behind it cannot be checked.

## Invoices and money

1. What is still to pay

   In my Google Drive folder FOLDER, read every invoice. Give me a table with
   one row per file: file name, supplier, invoice number, amount, currency, due
   date, and paid or unpaid. Flag any invoice number that appears more than
   once and anything overdue as of today. Then give the total still to pay, per
   currency, counting each invoice number once and leaving out what is paid.

2. One supplier over time

   In FOLDER, list every invoice from SUPPLIER in date order with the amount,
   and say whether the price changed.

3. For the accountant

   In FOLDER, list every invoice dated in QUARTER as CSV: date, supplier,
   number, amount, currency, VAT if shown, file name.

4. What is missing

   I expect a monthly invoice from SUPPLIER. In FOLDER, which months since
   MONTH have none?

5. Scanned receipts

   In FOLDER, read the receipts saved as PDF and give me the shop, date and
   total of each, with the file name. List any file you could not read, such
   as photos, so I can attach those to the chat instead.

## Quotes and proposals

6. Waiting for an answer

   In FOLDER, which quotes are still waiting for a reply, how old is each, and
   what is the total value?

7. Compare two quotes

   Compare QUOTE A and QUOTE B in FOLDER line by line: what is in one and not
   the other, and the price difference.

8. Reuse a quote

   Using QUOTE in FOLDER as the pattern, write the line items for a new quote
   for CLIENT, who wants SCOPE. In the chat only.

## Notes and documents

9. Open actions

   In FOLDER, list every action item and open question in the meeting notes,
   with the file and date each comes from.

10. One question, many files

    Across FOLDER, what did we agree with CLIENT about TOPIC? Quote the lines
    and name the files.

11. What changed

    Compare DOCUMENT A and DOCUMENT B in FOLDER and list what changed between
    them.

12. Find a file you half remember

    Find the document in my Drive where I wrote about TOPIC, probably around
    MONTH. Give me the three likeliest files with a line from each.

## Rules worth adding to any of them

- Name the folder: "in my Google Drive folder FOLDER".
- Ask for rows before totals: "one row per file, then the total".
- Ask for the source: "say which file each figure comes from".
- Ask for the gap: "say which files you could not read".

When it breaks

“Drive didn’t return any readable text from it.” The file is a photo (PNG or JPG). Scan it to PDF, or attach the image to the chat instead.

The total is lower than you expected. A file was left out as unreadable, or as not an invoice. Claude lists what it left out; read that line.

It reads files from outside the folder. The folder name matched more than one folder, or the prompt did not name one. Rename the folder to something unique, or paste the folder’s link into the prompt.

It asks you to approve something. It is about to change your Drive, for example create a file. Press Deny if you only wanted it to read.

The connector was connected and now is not. Tokens expire, and changing your Google password ends them. Open the connector page and press Connect again.

Turning the connector off

Not something to do routinely. Disconnect when you stop using it, or when you no longer want Claude reading your Drive.

1. Open Customize, then Connectors.
2. Open Google Drive.
3. Press Disconnect and confirm. Access ends immediately.
4. Remove it at Google too, under Account, Security, Your connections to third-party apps. That is what revokes the token itself.