OAuth 2.0 for Mobile & Desktop Apps

This document explains how applications installed on devices like phones, tablets, and computers use Google's OAuth 2.0 endpoints to authorize access to Google APIs.

OAuth 2.0 allows users to share specific data with an application while keeping their usernames, passwords, and other information private. For example, an application can use OAuth 2.0 to obtain permission from users to store files in their Google Drives.

Installed apps are distributed to individual devices, and it is assumed that these apps cannot keep secrets. They can access Google APIs while the user is present at the app or when the app is running in the background.

This authorization flow is similar to the one used for web server applications. The main difference is that installed apps must open the system browser and supply a local redirect URI to handle responses from Google's authorization server.

Alternatives

For mobile apps, you may prefer to use Google Sign-in for Android or iOS. The Google Sign-in client libraries handle authentication and user authorization, and they may be simpler to implement than the lower-level protocol described here.

For apps running on devices that do not support a system browser or that have limited input capabilities, such as TVs, game consoles, cameras, or printers, see OAuth 2.0 for TVs & Devices or Sign-In on TVs and Limited Input Devices.

Libraries and samples

We recommend the following libraries and samples to help you implement the OAuth 2.0 flow described in this document:

• AppAuth for Android library
• AppAuth for iOS library
• OAuth for Apps: Windows Samples

Prerequisites

Enable APIs for your project

Any application that calls Google APIs needs to enable those APIs in the API Console.

To enable an API for your project:

1. Open the API Library in the Google API Console.
2. If prompted, select a project, or create a new one.
3. The API Library lists all available APIs, grouped by product family and popularity. If the API you want to enable isn't visible in the list, use search to find it, or click View All in the product family it belongs to.
4. Select the API you want to enable, then click the Enable button.
5. If prompted, enable billing.
6. If prompted, read and accept the API's Terms of Service.

Create authorization credentials

Any application that uses OAuth 2.0 to access Google APIs must have authorization credentials that identify the application to Google's OAuth 2.0 server. The following steps explain how to create credentials for your project. Your applications can then use the credentials to access APIs that you have enabled for that project.

1. Go to the Credentials page.
2. Click Create credentials > OAuth client ID.
3. The sections below describe the client types and the redirect methods that Google's authorization server supports. Choose the client type that is recommended for your application, name your OAuth client, and set the other fields in the form as appropriate.

Identify access scopes

Scopes enable your application to only request access to the resources that it needs while also enabling users to control the amount of access that they grant to your application. Thus, there may be an inverse relationship between the number of scopes requested and the likelihood of obtaining user consent.

Before you start implementing OAuth 2.0 authorization, we recommend that you identify the scopes that your app will need permission to access.

The OAuth 2.0 API Scopes document contains a full list of scopes that you might use to access Google APIs.

Obtaining OAuth 2.0 access tokens

The following steps show how your application interacts with Google's OAuth 2.0 server to obtain a user's consent to perform an API request on the user's behalf. Your application must have that consent before it can execute a Google API request that requires user authorization.

Step 1: Generate a code verifier and challenge

Google supports the Proof Key for Code Exchange (PKCE) protocol to make the installed app flow more secure. A unique code verifier is created for every authorization request, and its transformed value, called "code_challenge", is sent to the authorization server to obtain the authorization code.

Create the code verifier

A code_verifier is a high-entropy cryptographic random string using the unreserved characters [A-Z] / [a-z] / [0-9] / "-" / "." / "_" / "~", with a minimum length of 43 characters and a maximum length of 128 characters.

The code verifier should have enough entropy to make it impractical to guess the value.

Create the code challenge

Two methods of creating the code challenge are supported.

code_challenge = BASE64URL-ENCODE(SHA256(ASCII(code_verifier)))

code_challenge = code_verifier

Step 2: Send a request to Google's OAuth 2.0 server

To obtain user authorization, send a request to Google's authorization server at https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/v2/auth. This endpoint handles active session lookup, authenticates the user, and obtains user consent. The endpoint is only accessible over SSL, and it refuses HTTP (non-SSL) connections.

The authorization server supports the following query string parameters for installed applications:

Sample authorization URLs

The tabs below show sample authorization URLs for the different redirect URI options.

The URLs are identical except for the value of the redirect_uri parameter. The URLs also contain the required response_type and client_id parameters as well as the optional state parameter. Each URL contains line breaks and spaces for readability.

https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/v2/auth?
 scope=email%20profile&
 response_type=code&
 state=security_token%3D138r5719ru3e1%26url%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Foauth2.example.com%2Ftoken&
 redirect_uri=com.example.app%3A/oauth2redirect&
 client_id=client_id

https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/v2/auth?
 scope=email%20profile&
 response_type=code&
 state=security_token%3D138r5719ru3e1%26url%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Foauth2.example.com%2Ftoken&
 redirect_uri=http%3A//127.0.0.1%3A9004&
 client_id=client_id

Step 3: Google prompts user for consent

In this step, the user decides whether to grant your application the requested access. At this stage, Google displays a consent window that shows the name of your application and the Google API services that it is requesting permission to access with the user's authorization credentials and a summary of the scopes of access to be granted. The user can then consent to grant access to one or more scopes requested by your application or refuse the request.

Your application doesn't need to do anything at this stage as it waits for the response from Google's OAuth 2.0 server indicating whether any access was granted. That response is explained in the following step.

Step 4: Handle the OAuth 2.0 server response

The manner in which your application receives the authorization response depends on the redirect URI scheme that it uses. Regardless of the scheme, the response will either contain an authorization code (code) or an error (error). For example, error=access_denied indicates that the user declined the request.

If the user grants access to your application, you can exchange the authorization code for an access token and a refresh token as described in the next step.

Step 5: Exchange authorization code for refresh and access tokens

To exchange an authorization code for an access token, call the https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token endpoint and set the following parameters:

The following snippet shows a sample request:

POST /token HTTP/1.1
Host: oauth2.googleapis.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

code=4/P7q7W91a-oMsCeLvIaQm6bTrgtp7&
client_id=your_client_id&
client_secret=your_client_secret&
redirect_uri=http://127.0.0.1:9004&
grant_type=authorization_code

Google responds to this request by returning a JSON object that contains a short-lived access token and a refresh token.

The response contains the following fields:

The following snippet shows a sample response:

{
  "access_token": "1/fFAGRNJru1FTz70BzhT3Zg",
  "expires_in": 3920,
  "token_type": "Bearer",
  "scope": "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.metadata.readonly",
  "refresh_token": "1//xEoDL4iW3cxlI7yDbSRFYNG01kVKM2C-259HOF2aQbI"
}

Calling Google APIs

After your application obtains an access token, you can use the token to make calls to a Google API on behalf of a given user account if the scope(s) of access required by the API have been granted. To do this, include the access token in a request to the API by including either an access_token query parameter or an Authorization HTTP header Bearer value. When possible, the HTTP header is preferable, because query strings tend to be visible in server logs. In most cases you can use a client library to set up your calls to Google APIs (for example, when calling the Drive Files API).

You can try out all the Google APIs and view their scopes at the OAuth 2.0 Playground.

HTTP GET examples

A call to the drive.files endpoint (the Drive Files API) using the Authorization: Bearer HTTP header might look like the following. Note that you need to specify your own access token:

GET /drive/v2/files HTTP/1.1
Host: www.googleapis.com
Authorization: Bearer access_token

Here is a call to the same API for the authenticated user using the access_token query string parameter:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files?access_token=access_token

curl examples

You can test these commands with the curl command-line application. Here's an example that uses the HTTP header option (preferred):

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer access_token" https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files

Or, alternatively, the query string parameter option:

curl https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files?access_token=access_token

Refreshing an access token

Access tokens periodically expire and become invalid credentials for a related API request. You can refresh an access token without prompting the user for permission (including when the user is not present) if you requested offline access to the scopes associated with the token.

To refresh an access token, your application sends an HTTPS POST request to Google's authorization server (https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token) that includes the following parameters:

The following snippet shows a sample request:

POST /token HTTP/1.1
Host: oauth2.googleapis.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

client_id=your_client_id&
client_secret=your_client_secret&
refresh_token=refresh_token&
grant_type=refresh_token

As long as the user has not revoked the access granted to the application, the token server returns a JSON object that contains a new access token. The following snippet shows a sample response:

{
  "access_token": "1/fFAGRNJru1FTz70BzhT3Zg",
  "expires_in": 3920,
  "scope": "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.metadata.readonly",
  "token_type": "Bearer"
}

Note that there are limits on the number of refresh tokens that will be issued; one limit per client/user combination, and another per user across all clients. You should save refresh tokens in long-term storage and continue to use them as long as they remain valid. If your application requests too many refresh tokens, it may run into these limits, in which case older refresh tokens will stop working.

Revoking a token

In some cases a user may wish to revoke access given to an application. A user can revoke access by visiting Account Settings. See the Remove site or app access section of the Third-party sites & apps with access to your account support document for more information.

It is also possible for an application to programmatically revoke the access given to it. Programmatic revocation is important in instances where a user unsubscribes, removes an application, or the API resources required by an app have significantly changed. In other words, part of the removal process can include an API request to ensure the permissions previously granted to the application are removed.

To programmatically revoke a token, your application makes a request to https://oauth2.googleapis.com/revoke and includes the token as a parameter:

curl -d -X -POST --header "Content-type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
        https://oauth2.googleapis.com/revoke?token={token}

The token can be an access token or a refresh token. If the token is an access token and it has a corresponding refresh token, the refresh token will also be revoked.

If the revocation is successfully processed, then the HTTP status code of the response is 200. For error conditions, an HTTP status code 400 is returned along with an error code.

Further Reading

The IETF Best Current Practice OAuth 2.0 for Native Apps establishes many of the best practices documented here.