Ask too many Google Drive permissions when using https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive

Question

My app is required to upload a csv and convert to Google Sheets. So we are asking this permission "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive" from our user. But some of our users complain we are asking too many permissions. Is there any other settings that we can use to avoid asking too much?

Here are the permission list when user authorizes:

Upload, download, update, and delete files in your Google Drive
Create, access, update, and delete native Google documents in your Google Drive
Manage files and documents in your Google Drive (e.g., search, organize, and modify permissions and other metadata, such as title)

Answer 1

What scope or scopes does my app need?

As a general rule, choose the most restrictive scope possible, and avoid requesting scopes that your app does not actually need. Users more readily grant access to limited, clearly described scopes. Conversely, users may hesitate to grant broad access to their files unless they truly trust your app and understand why it needs the information.

The scope https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file strikes this balance in a practical way. Presumably, users only open or create a file with an app that they trust, for reasons they understand.

https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file Per-file access to files created or opened by the app

Requesting full drive scope for an app

Full access to all files in the user's Drive (https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive) may be necessary for some apps. An app designed to sync files, for instance, needs this level of access to Drive. Apps with special needs related to listing or reorganizing files might need full scope.

Requesting drive-wide read-only scope for an app

Read-only access to all of a user's Drive files (https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.readonly) may be useful for certain apps. For instance, a photo browser might need to reorganize image files in a unique presentation order for a slideshow, or a mobile app might have to work around unique display constraints without needing to write anything. For apps that only need to read file metadata for all files in Drive, there's https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.metadata.readonly.

Requesting full drive scope during app development

One common and completely valid case for using full scope is iterative development. It may just be easier to avoid authorization-related constraints and use the full scope while testing your app during development. Then before you actually publish your app, you can back off to the file-level scope or whatever scope you really need for production operation.

Conculsion

That text was ripped directly from Google Drive Scopes page which I use as a rule of thumb when developing drive applications. In your case because you need to be able to upload files I would say you should consider testing a little with the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file scope, I haven't tried this one before but it sounds like it may work in your instance. Unfortunately I think that is your only other option besides full drive access.