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Accessing shared DriveItems

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Access a shared DriveItem or a collection of shared items by using a shareId or sharing URL.

To use a sharing URL with this API, your app needs to transform the URL into a sharing token.

Permissions

One of the following permissions is required to call this API. To learn more, including how to choose permissions, see Permissions.

Permission type Permissions (from least to most privileged)
Delegated (work or school account) Files.ReadWrite, Files.ReadWrite.All, Sites.ReadWrite.All
Delegated (personal Microsoft account) Files.ReadWrite, Files.ReadWrite.All
Application Files.ReadWrite.All, Sites.ReadWrite.All

HTTP request

GET /shares/{shareIdOrEncodedSharingUrl}

Path Parameters

Parameter Name Value Description
sharingTokenOrUrl string Required. A sharing token as returned by the API or a properly encoded sharing URL.

Encoding sharing URLs

To encode a sharing URL, use the following logic:

  1. First, use base64 encode the URL.
  2. Convert the base64 encoded result to unpadded base64url format by removing = characters from the end of the value, replacing / with _ and + with -.)
  3. Append u! to be beginning of the string.

As an example, to encode a URL in C#:

string sharingUrl = "https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=1231244193912!12&authKey=1201919!12921!1";
string base64Value = System.Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(sharingUrl));
string encodedUrl = "u!" + base64Value.TrimEnd('=').Replace('/','_').Replace('+','-');

Response

If successful, this method returns a 200 OK response code and a sharedDriveItem resource in the response body.

Example

Request

Here is an example of the request to retrieve a shared item:

GET /shares/{shareIdOrEncodedSharingUrl}

Response

Here is an example of the response.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-type: application/json

{
  "id": "B64397C8-07AE-43E4-920E-32BFB4331A5B",
  "name": "contoso project.docx",
  "owner": {
    "user": {
      "id": "98E88F1C-F8DC-47CC-A406-C090248B30E5",
      "displayName": "Ryan Gregg"
    }
  }
}

Access the shared item directly

While the SharedDriveItem contains some useful information, most apps will want to directly access the shared DriveItem. The SharedDriveItem resource includes a root and items relationships which can access content within the scope of the shared item.

Example (single file)

Request

By requesting the driveItem relationship, the DriveItem that was shared will be returned.

GET /shares/{shareIdOrUrl}/driveItem

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "id": "9FFFDB3C-5B87-4062-9606-1B008CA88E44",
  "name": "contoso project.docx",
  "eTag": "2246BD2D-7811-4660-BD0F-1CF36133677B,1",
  "file": {},
  "size": 109112
}

Example (shared folder)

Request

By requesting the driveItem relationship and expanding the children collection, the DriveItem that was shared will be returned along with the files within the shared folder.

GET /shares/{shareIdOrUrl}/driveItem?$expand=children

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "id": "9FFFDB3C-5B87-4062-9606-1B008CA88E44",
  "name": "Contoso Project",
  "eTag": "2246BD2D-7811-4660-BD0F-1CF36133677B,1",
  "folder": {},
  "size": 10911212,
  "children": [
    {
      "id": "AFBBDD79-868E-452D-AD4D-24697D4A4044",
      "name": "Propsoal.docx",
      "file": {},
      "size": 19001
    },
    {
      "id": "A91FE90A-2F2C-4EE6-B412-C4FFBA3F71A6",
      "name": "Update to Proposal.docx",
      "file": {},
      "size": 91001
    }
  ]
}

Error Responses

Read the Error Responses topic for more information about how errors are returned.

Remarks

  • For OneDrive for Business and SharePoint, the Shares API always requires authentication and cannot be used to access anonymously shared content without a user context.