Automating Google websites

Problem

If you try to run an automation on a Google website (Google Forms, Google Sheets, Gmail, YouTube, etc.), you'll see the following error message in the logs:

Solution

1. Open chrome://apps

2. Right click on all Chrome apps for Google websites (e.g. Google Drive, Gmail, YouTube)

3. Select "Remove from Chrome..."

4. Refresh the Google website you're trying to automate

5. Your flow will now run successfully

Background

Google Chrome comes pre-installed with Chrome apps that mainly serve as shortcuts to Google websites for Chrome OS users. Unfortunately, these pre-installed apps have a known bug that prevent extensions like Browserflow from automating Google websites. By removing these apps, you'll be able to run flows on Google websites.

Google is aware of these issues and is working on fixing them:

• https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=885025#c39

• https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=809304

Note: Removing these pre-installed apps will not affect your access or usage of these services. If you still feel unsure, you always have the option of reinstalling these apps via the Chrome Web Store:

• Google Drive

• Gmail

• YouTube

• Slides

• Docs

• Sheets