How to Create a WordPress Google Drive Upload Form

How to Create a WordPress Google Drive Upload Form

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Do you want to create a WordPress Google Drive upload form?

With WordPress, it’s possible to back up file uploads from your forms to Google Drive.

In this post, we’ll show you how to add a file upload feature to your contact forms, and also have those files automatically backed up in your Google Drive.

Create Your WordPress File Upload Form Now

Why Create a Google Drive Upload Form?

A Google Drive upload form gives you the reliability of having your uploads from forms safely stored at all times. Normally, form uploads are stored on your website’s servers. But your website can quickly run out of space if all of your uploads are stored within it.

When you connect Google Drive with your contact form, it will also send a copy of those uploaded files to your Google Drive. That way, you will have copies of those uploaded files on both your server and Google Drive. But you’re going to need a WordPress Google Drive upload plugin to achieve this, as we’ll show below.

Besides, it’s always wise to have a copy of your files in case of scenarios like data corruption or, worse, a hacker attack.

Note: This guide will only show you how to save your upload form file attachments into a Google Drive folder. If you also want to save your contact form entries such as the name, email, and message, check out our guide on learning how to connect a contact form with Google Sheets.

Now that we know why creating a Google Drive upload form is so important, let’s dive into the steps for how you can connect your file uploads with Google Drive.

How to Create a WordPress Google Drive Upload Form

Let’s dive into creating a WordPress Google Drive integration so you can back up from your WordPress forms.

1. Install WordPress Google Drive Upload Plugin

WPForms is the best WordPress plugin to upload files to Google Drive. To start uploading files from WordPress to Google Drive, your first need to install the WPForms plugin on your WordPress site if you don’t already have it.

If you don’t know how, see our documentation on installing the WPForms plugin for help.

The WPForms homepage

For this tutorial, you’ll also need the Zapier addon. It lets you connect your forms to thousands of other apps, including Google Drive and Dropbox for file uploads.

Go to WPForms » Addons in your admin area and click Install Addon to install and activate it.

Installing the Zapier addon

For more detailed instructions, see this tutorial on adding WPForms addons.

After it’s installed and activated on your site, it’s time to create the file upload form in the next step.

2. Create the File Upload Form

Open your WordPress admin area and click on WPForms » Add New.

add new form

This will open the WPForms form builder. Here, start by giving your form a suitable name.

Naming your file upload form

Next, we’ll take advantage of WPForms’ extensive library of form templates. To make our job easier, we’ll use the File Upload Form template.

Scroll down and type in File Upload Form in the search field under the Select a Template section. Then, select the template by clicking on Use Template.

Choosing the File Upload Form template

When the template opens, you’ll find some common fields within including a file upload field. You can customize this template any way you like or leave it as it is.

The File Upload Form template

For a more detailed guide on file upload forms, see our tutorial on how to create a file upload form in WordPress.

When you’re ready, make sure to Save the form.

3. Embed and Publish the Upload Form

Now, we’re going to add the upload form to a new page on our WordPress site. Click on the Embed button on the top-right of the form builder.

Embed form

Now, select Create New Page in the dialog box.

Create new page

Give your new page a name.

Naming a new page for your file upload form

Now, you’ll be taken to your new page with the upload form you just created already embedded within. Click on Publish to finish adding this page to your site.

Publishing a file upload form

When your form is published, fill out a test entry yourself. This will allow Zapier to test its integration with WPForms in the next step.

4. Connect WPForms With Zapier

In order to connect Google Drive with WPForms, you’ll need a Zapier account (you can get it for free). Once, you’ve set up your account on Zapier, navigate to your dashboard and click on Create Zap.

Creating a zap in Zapier

Now, search for WPForms in the search field and click on WPForms when it appears on your screen.

Choosing the WPForms app event in Zapier

Next, click on the Trigger Event dropdown field and select New Form Entry.

Choosing New Form Entry as the trigger event in Zapier

To proceed, you’ll now need to integrate your WPForms plugin with Zapier. Click on Sign in.

Choose your WPForms account to connect to Zapier

This will open a new window asking for your WPForms API key.

Back in your WordPress admin area, go to WPForms » Settings » Integrations. Now, click on the Zapier icon to access your API key.

Copying the Zapier API key in the WPForms settings

Copy the key and switch to Zapier’s WPForms connection window. Then, paste the key under the API Key field. Also, enter your website URL. When you’re done, click on Yes, Continue.

Allowing Zapier to access WPForms

You should now be back to Zapier’s Zap creation window. Click on Continue.

Now, we’re going to set up a trigger. Click on the dropdown field to see all the forms that you’ve created with WPForms so far. Make sure to select the right one from the list.

For this example, we want to select the File Upload Form. Press Continue after you’ve made your selection.

Connecting your file upload form to Zapier

Now, we’re going to test your zap. Click on Test trigger.

Testing your trigger in Zapier

Zapier should find the test entry that you filled out in the previous step, which will look something like this.

Zapier file upload form test entry

Click on Continue to finish this step. Next, we’re going to connect Zapier to your Google Drive.

5. Connect Google Drive with Zapier

For the WordPress Google Drive integration to work, we need to set up Google Drive as the “App Event” triggered by WPForms.

After you’ve pressed the Continue button to finish the previous step, Zapier will ask you to choose an app to connect your WPForms triggers with. Search for Google Drive in the search field and click on the icon.

Choosing Google Drive as the action app in Zapier

Then, click on the dropdown menu and select Upload File as the action event and press Continue.

Choosing Upload File as the Google Drive action in Zapier

Zapier will then ask you to sign in to Google. Press the Sign in button.

Signing in to Google Drive via Zapier

This will open a popup where you can log in to your Google account.

Logging in to Google via Zapier

Then you’ll need to give Zapier permission to access your Google account. Click the Allow button to proceed.

Allowing Zapier to access your Google Calendar

Now, we’ll set up the action we want Google Drive to perform when a new form entry is created on our site. Select your Google Drive to use, the folder where the uploads should be saved, and the file upload field from your form.

Setting up Google Drive uploads in Zapier

You can leave the rest of the options blank. But, you can customize them if you’d like to automatically convert your uploaded files to Google Drive file formats or change the names.

Once you’re done, click Continue.

Zapier is now ready to test your Google Drive action event. Click on Test action to proceed.

Testing your Zapier connection to Google Drive

You should instantly see a confirmation message stating that your upload file was sent to Google Drive. You can also log in to your Google Drive and confirm if the upload you provided during form entry was correctly sent to your selected folder.

A success message for Google Drive in Zapier

Note: WordPress might also restrict some types of file uploads. You can fix that by following this guide on allowing additional file types.

Make sure to publish your Zap before you leave Zapier.

Publishing a Google Drive Zap in Zapier

That’s it! Now you can send a copy of your WordPress form upload files to your Google Drive whenever a user fills in an entry.

Next, Automate WordPress Tasks

If you think the idea of doing all this stuff with your forms automatically is cool, you’ll definitely want to check out this post on the best WordPress automation tools.

And, if you’re a nonprofit looking for ways to track donations effectively, here’s our guide to creating an automated donation tracker using the WPForms’ Google Sheets integration. For some other ways to use Google Workspace apps on a WordPress site, check out our guide to the top Google Workspace plugins for WordPress.

You may also enjoy reading our guide to changing the max file upload size in WordPress. This may come in handy when you’re working with file upload forms. You’ll be able to set the max file upload size for your forms to match the max file upload size for your site.

Ready to build your upload form? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. WPForms Pro includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Create Your WordPress File Upload Form Now

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Comments

  1. Is this entire process end-to-end encrypted? Where are the files stored temporarily before they are transferred to Google Drive? It seems to store them on a server called i0.wp.com. What is this server? Is it secure? Who owns/controls it?

    1. Hey Ryan.

      In order to make sure we answer your question as thoroughly as possible, we will be responding via email support in your current active ticket on the same.

      I hope this helps!

  2. My form recently stopped sending the file to Google drive. When I run the Zap by itself, it executes fine, placing the last file uploaded in WPFORMS into Google drive. However, if I trigger it via the WPFORMS, I receive the following error “Required field “file” (file) is missing.” I talked to multi-level ZAP support. ZAP indicated this is a known issue with WPFORMS and asked me to contact WPFORMS. Can someone tell me if this is a known issue and if someone is working on it?

    1. Hey Erik, we are sorry for any trouble. In order to make sure we answer your question as thoroughly as possible and avoid any confusion.

      Would you mind reach out to us with additional details so that we can help you further on this case?

      Thanks.

    1. Hey Arjunan we are sorry for any trouble. In order to make sure we answer your question as thoroughly as possible and avoid any confusion.

      Would you mind reaching out to us with additional details so that we can help you further on this case?

      Thanks.

  3. I like this solution, but it’s missing something I need.

    I’d like to be able to create a pulldown in the upload form that allows the user to select which folder in the google drive to upload to.

    For example if my user is uploading a PDF for a presentation on Friday, I’d like them to be able to select the Friday folder from the pulldown. Does Zapier allow for this?

    1. Hi MJ,

      Unfortunately, I am sorry to let you know that we do not have an inbuilt feature to select the specific folders as you have mentioned via dropdown. I agree it would be super helpful! I have gone ahead and added this feature to be considered as a future enhancement.

      Thanks,

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