Google spreadsheet api Request had insufficient authentication scopes

First, make sure you also enable the Sheets API in your Developers Console.

The insufficient authentication scopes is an error in the OAuth 2.0 token provided in the request specifies scopes that are insufficient for accessing the requested data.

So make sure you use the correct and all necessary scope and check this Authorizing requests with OAuth 2.0 if you properly follow the steps here.

Lastly, try to revoke the access and try to redo it.

For more information, check this related SO question:

  • Write to GoogleSheet via API with Java

  • Google Spreadsheets API with OAuth2.0 using Javascript


  1. Firstly delete the credentials files ~/.credentials/sheets.googleapis.com-nodejs-quickstart.json (depending on your setting)

  2. Change the scope variable used for reading cells from Google Spreadsheets from

var SCOPES = ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets.readonly'];

to

var SCOPES = ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets'];

  1. After the execution of code, API will authenticate again and then the issue will be resolved.

The scopes look good, maybe you should try to remove the credentials stored previously in /Users/yourUserName/.credentials/sheets.googleapis.com-projectName/*, and then execute the application again to get new credentials.


In my case a token.pickle file was created in the same working directory as my program, I also had my credentials.json file in the same directory, all I did was deleted the token.pickle file , then changed the scope, then ran it again, it will again ask for authentication in your browser and that's it , it works.

My code snippet is like below , I was creating a pickle file so I had to delete it before changing scope

    if os.path.exists('token.pickle'):
    with open('token.pickle', 'rb') as token:
        creds = pickle.load(token)
    # If there are no (valid) credentials available, let the user log in.
    if not creds or not creds.valid:
        if creds and creds.expired and creds.refresh_token:
            creds.refresh(Request())
        else:
            flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file(
                'credentials.json', SCOPES)
            creds = flow.run_local_server()
        # Save the credentials for the next run
        with open('token.pickle', 'wb') as token:
            pickle.dump(creds, token)