How to authorize an Apps Script project

In this post, I’ll show you how to authorize an Apps Script project. This could be a project that you’ve written yourself or it could be a program someone else has written and something like Google Sheets has displayed a pop up window asking you to authorize the code.

The good thing is that it’s easy to do! The exact process will depend on if you have a free Gmail account or a paid Google Workspace account and you are within the code author’s domain or not. But all that means is that with a free account, you have to go through a couple of extra steps. Let’s start with that one.

Authorizing a script (using a Gmail account)

Let’s look at authorizing a script from the script editor with a Gmail account.

First, a pop up will appear asking you to review the permissions. Click on “Review permissions”.

Another pop-up will appear asking you to choose the account you want to authorize the script with. Usually this will be the current one you’re using and it will be the first option, but it does give you the option to change accounts if you so wish.

Then a slightly scary message will appear, saying Google hasn’t verified the app and that you shouldn’t use it. Basically if it’s your script or you trust the developer there’s no problem. To continue through the process, click on “Advanced”.

Then click on “Go to [name of the script file] (unsafe)”. Again it’s another scary message but just click on it.

Then you will be on the final screen where it will detail what you are authorizing the script to do. For example, this script will access my Google Drive and be able to work with Google Sheets. If you’re happy with all that, click “Allow”. And that’s it!

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If you go to use a script that needs authorizing, for example, by clicking on a menu in a Google Sheet, then you will see this pop-up message first instead of the Review permissions one above. Just click “Continue” and you will be taken to the Google account screen.

Authorizing a script (Google Workspace account)

Authorizing a script from a Google Workspace account is much quicker and doesn’t have the scary messages.

Run the script and you’ll see the same Review permissions pop-up or if you are running it from a menu, you’ll see the green Continue pop-up. Click on either “Review permissions” or “Continue”

Then choose the account you want to authorize the script from. Again, this is likely to be the one you’re currently in and so click on the first option.

Then you’ll be taken straight to the Allow screen. Just click “Allow”. And that’s it! 🙂

This assumes you are in the same domain as the script author, e.g. in the same company/school, in this example, in bazroberts.com.

You will be asked to authorize a script if it’s the first time you’ve used it or maybe some fundamental change has been made to it and it’s it’s trying to access different areas. For example, the original script may access only Google Drive, but a later version may also access Google Sheets, and this would require further authorization as the scope of the script project has changed.

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