Drive Video Download

Drive Video Download

Downloads Google Drive videos that have download restrictions (canDownload: false) by piggybacking on the user's active browser session (Brave or Chrome) via CDP.

When to use

• Drive API returns "cannotDownloadFile" or canDownload: false
• yt-dlp returns HTTP 403 on the Drive URL
• File is a Google Meet/Workspace recording with admin-disabled downloads
• Any shared corporate video the user can view but not download

Prerequisites

1. Brave or Chrome is running and the user is logged in to Google
2. Remote debugging enabled:
   • Brave: brave://inspect/#devices → toggle the switch
   • Chrome: chrome://inspect/#devices → toggle "Discover network targets"
3. The user can view the file in their browser (even if download is blocked)
4. Node.js 22+ (uses built-in WebSocket)

Usage

# Basic — outputs to /tmp/drive-<fileId>.m4a
node ~/.claude/skills/drive-video-download/scripts/download.mjs <file-id-or-url>

# With custom output path
node ~/.claude/skills/drive-video-download/scripts/download.mjs <file-id-or-url> /tmp/recording.m4a

Both full Drive URLs and bare file IDs work:

node ~/.claude/skills/drive-video-download/scripts/download.mjs "https://drive.google.com/file/d/<your-file-id>/view"
node ~/.claude/skills/drive-video-download/scripts/download.mjs <your-file-id>

The script prints the output file path to stdout on success.

What the script does

1. Reads DevToolsActivePort from the browser profile — auto-detects Brave, Chrome, or Chromium on macOS/Linux
2. Finds or opens the Drive file tab in the browser
3. Reloads the tab and intercepts the workspacevideo-pa manifest response via CDP Network domain — this gives a signed streaming URL for itag=140 (audio-only m4a, ~128kbps, ideal for transcription)
4. Opens a same-origin tab at the videoplayback URL and calls Network.getCookies — this is necessary because rqh=1 in the signed URL requires session cookies that are tied to the videoplayback origin
5. Downloads 8 parallel chunks via curl with exact browser headers (Referer = URL itself, matching User-Agent and sec-ch-ua from live browser)
6. Assembles chunks in order into the output file

Key technical findings (learned 2026-03-18)

• canDownload: false blocks the Drive API (alt=media), yt-dlp, and plain curl with any headers
• The workspacevideo-pa endpoint returns a signed streaming URL that bypasses download restrictions — it's what the Drive web player uses internally
• The signed URL has rqh=1 (required request hash) — blocks curl without the right cookies+headers
• Critical: Referer must be the videoplayback URL itself — NOT youtube.googleapis.com (common wrong assumption from other YouTube-based approaches)
• No x-client-data or origin headers needed — the browser doesn't send them for this endpoint
• The Network.getCookies on the videoplayback tab (same origin as the streaming server) returns the right cookies; Drive tab cookies are insufficient

After downloading

Pass the output file to the video-transcribe skill for transcription.