Fix the Google Drive 403 download error in WebView apps on Android 🤳

People are facing an issue in downloading files from Google Drive using WebView-based apps on Android. The exact error is “Access to …….docs.googleusercontent.com was denied. You don’t have authorization to view this page. (HTTP ERROR 403)”

This error seems to be a common problem to handle download links from Google Drive (see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48678478/how-to-download-file-from-google-drive-with-link-in-android). Links are working fine in the mobile browser on Android and computer browser. The problem only occurs on WebView-based apps in Android.

But here is good news: WebViewGold for Android offers a simple solution for this! Please configure “drive.google.com” as a host to be opened externally, see the documentation – this should solve the problem and even open Google Drive links in the Google Drive app 🙂 Enjoy!