Open in Google

I don't have Microsoft 365. So every time someone sent me an .xlsx, or ChatGPT generated one for me, I did the same stupid dance: open drive.google.com, New → File upload, wait, right-click → Open with Sheets. Six clicks just to look at a spreadsheet. And lately it's gotten worse, because now the LLMs spit out CSVs and spreadsheets constantly, and every single one means doing that dance again.

So I built the thing I wanted: right-click the file → "Open in Google Sheets." Done.

What it does

Right-click any Excel, CSV, Word, or PowerPoint file on Windows. It uploads to a folder in your Google Drive, converts it, and opens it in Sheets / Docs / Slides in your browser.

Open the same file again next week and it updates that Drive copy instead of making a second one. Rename the file and it starts fresh. New name, new Drive file, which is what you'd expect.

.xlsx .xls .csv → Sheets · .docx .doc → Docs · .pptx .ppt → Slides

Setup

Two parts, about ten minutes, once ever.

Part 1: Give the app a Google credential (5 min). Google doesn't let any app touch your Drive without one, so you create it in your own account. Free, and the app only ever gets permission to touch files it created itself. The rest of your Drive stays invisible to it.

flowchart LR
    A[Cloud Console] --> B[New project]
    B --> C[Enable Drive API]
    C --> D[Consent screen<br/>+ add yourself<br/>as test user]
    D --> E[OAuth client<br/>Desktop app]
    E --> F[Download JSON]

The click-by-click version is in SETUP.md.

Part 2: Install on Windows (2 min). Grab open-in-google.zip from Releases, extract it anywhere, open PowerShell in that folder:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Install.ps1 -ClientJson "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\client_secret_*.apps.googleusercontent.com.json"

Right-click a spreadsheet → Open in Google Sheets. Your browser asks you to sign in once; you never see it again. No admin rights needed.

Privacy

• This talks only to Google's APIs, straight from your PC. No server, no analytics, no account with anyone.
• Your sign-in tokens are encrypted by Windows and never leave your machine.
• It's three small scripts. Read them. That's the whole point of open source.

Things it doesn't do

• Edits you make in the browser don't sync back to the file on your disk. The local file is the source; Drive is where you view and edit.
• It needs internet to upload, obviously. After that it's just a Google doc.

If you hate it

Run Uninstall.ps1. The right-click entries disappear; your Drive files stay where they are. Add -RemoveAppData to wipe the saved login too.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.