When using a custom build, fork, or integration of Chromium, or if you're building ChromiumOS, you will need access to Google API for key functionality.
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*** note Note: Software distribution with keys acquired for yourself is allowed, but the keys themselves cannot be shared with parties outside the legal entity that accepted the API ToS. Keep in mind that a number of the APIs will have no or very limited quota and not all of the APIs have additional quota available for purchase.
Googlers only:
- For a simpler approach to API keys, see https://go/chrome-api-key-setup
- If you need a new API enabled in Chrome, use https://b/new?component=165132
How-to: First, acquire API keys. Then, specify the API keys to use either when you build Chromium, or at runtime using environment variables.
-
Make sure you are a member of chromium-dev@chromium.org (you can choose not to receive mail). *** note Note: the APIs below are only visible to people subscribed to that group.
-
Make sure you are logged in with the Google account associated with the email address that you used to subscribe to chromium-dev.
-
optional You may add other members of your organization or team on the Team tab.
-
Open the APIs and Services > Library from the hamburger menu, search for all of the following APIs. For each of these APIs:
- Click on it
- Click
Enable API
button at the top - Read and agree to the Terms of Service
- Check the
I have read and agree to the <API name> Terms of Service
checkbox - Click Accept.
List of APIs (if any are not shown, recheck step 1 above):
- Cloud Search API
- Geolocation API (requires enabling billing but is free to use; you can skip this one, in which case geolocation features of Chrome will not work)
- Google Drive API (enable this for Files.app on Chrome OS and SyncFileSystem API)
- Safe Browsing API
- Time Zone API
- Optional
- Admin SDK
- Cloud Translation API
- Geocoding API
- Google Assistant API
- Google Calendar API
- Nearby Messages API
-
Go to the Credentials sub tab under the API & Services section in the hamburger menu.
-
Click the
Create credentials
button then click on the OAuth client ID item in the drop-down list.- Click on the
Configure consent screen
button. Fill in the "product name" (anything you choose) and other details, then click onSave
. - Return to the Credentials tab and click the
Add credentials
button again, then select "OAuth 2.0 client ID" from the drop-down list. - In the "Application type" section check the Other option and give it a
name in the "Name" text box, then click
Create
.
- Click on the
-
In the pop-up window that appears, you'll see a client ID and a Client secret string. Copy and paste those in a text file on your dev box then click
OK
to dismiss. A new item should now appear in the OAuth 2.0 client IDs list. You can click on the name of your client ID to retrieve the ID and secret at any time. In the next few sections, these values will be referred to as the Client ID and Client secret fields. -
Click the
Create credentials
button again on the same page.- In the pop-over window that shows up, click the
API key
button. - A pop-over should show up giving you the API key. Copy/paste in to a text file to save, although you will be able to access this as well.
- Click
OK
to dismiss.
- In the pop-over window that shows up, click the
You should now have an API key and an OAuth 2.0 client ID in the Credentials tab. The next sections will refer to the value as the "API key".
*** note Note: Your keys are not for distribution, and should not be shared with others.
If you are building Chromium yourself, you can provide keys as part of your build configuration, that way they are always baked into your binary.
Specify three variables in your args.gn
file (edit by running gn args out/your_out_dir_here
)
google_api_key = "your_api_key"
google_default_client_id = "your_client_id"
google_default_client_secret = "your_client_secret"
If you prefer, you can build a Chromium binary (or use a pre-built Chromium
binary) without API keys baked in, and instead provide them at runtime. To do
so, set the environment variables GOOGLE_API_KEY
, GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID
and GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET
to your "API key", "Client ID" and "Client
secret" values respectively.
On Chromium OS to specify the keys as environment variables append them to the
end of /etc/chrome_dev.conf
:
GOOGLE_API_KEY=your_api_key
GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id
GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret
Signing in to Chromium requires an OAuth 2.0 token for authentication. As this OAuth 2.0 token gives access to various Google services that handle user data (e.g. Chrome sync), for security and privacy reasons the generation of this OAuth 2.0 token is restricted. This means that signing in to Chromium is restricted (as the OAuth 2.0 token cannot be generated). In order to sign in to Chromium builds, please add your test account to google-browser-signin-testaccounts@chromium.org (accounts in this group are allowed to get access tokens bypassing the restriction above).
*** note
Note: Starting with Chromium M69, when the browser is set up with an OAuth
2.0 client ID and client secret, signing in with your Google Account to any
Google web property will also attempt to sign you in to Chromium (which will
fail as explained above). To avoid such errors, remove your OAuth 2.0 client
ID and client secret from your build to stop generating tokens when users sign
in to Google web properties (remove google_default_client_id
,
google_default_client_secret
from gn args and GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID
and GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET
from your environment settings).
Many of the Google APIs used by Chrome are specific to Google and not intended for use in derived products. In the API Console you may be able to purchase additional quota for some of the APIs listed above. For APIs that do not have a "Pricing" link, additional quota is not available for purchase.
The default Chromium chrome.identity.getAuthToken
API that extensions may
call to obtain auth tokens will fail outside of Google Chrome as the
implementation uses restricted APIs.
A prototype CL for Chromium embedders might use to replace the implementation with one not dependent upon private APIs can be found attached to this post.