title: What scopes and permissions do I need to be able to get someone to download files from my Google Drive?
body: <p>So I provide my credentials along with a python script to allow downloading some files from my Google Drive. I tried using these scopes but they all fail:</p>
  <ul>
  <li><a href="https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.activity.readonly" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.activity.readonly</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.metadata.readonly" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.metadata.readonly</a></li>
  </ul>
  <p>Only this one worked:
  <a href="https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive</a></p>
  <p>But this token is asking the user to give read, write, edit, access to Google Drive. Why do they need to have all of these permissions, just to be able to download files from another Google Drive i.e. mine?</p>
  <p>I can't find the minimum scope that I need for this operation.</p>
  <p>I am using the Google Drive API in python.</p>