Issue with Google Drive image URLs in "Facebook Pages > Create a Photo Post" – returns "Invalid URL in parameter 'url'

How To
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1

Hi everyone,
I’m facing an issue with the “Create a Photo Post” module for Facebook Pages in Make. Here’s the context:

  • I’m reading data from a Google Sheet.
  • One column contains the image URL, coming from Google Drive (shared as public and converted to this format: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=FILE_ID).
  • The post is scheduled and everything else works fine (text, platform, time…).
  • But when Make tries to send the post to Facebook, I get this error:

“Invalid URL in parameter ‘url’”

:white_check_mark: What I’ve checked:

  • The Google Drive file is a .png image, publicly shared (Anyone with the link can view).
  • The uc?id= link works in a browser and directly shows/downloads the image.
  • The image size is small and loads fine from Drive.
  • The Media URL field is properly mapped from the Sheet to the module.

:test_tube: What I suspect:

  • Facebook’s API might not accept Drive URLs because of redirects or HTML wrappers, even if the link ends with .png.
  • I tried using https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=...&sz=w1000 too, but it still fails.
  • When switching to Imgur-hosted URLs, everything works perfectly.

:red_question_mark: Questions:

  • Has anyone here successfully used a Google Drive image URL in a Facebook photo post via Make?
  • Is there any workaround or way to force Make or Facebook to accept Drive links?
  • Could this be related to how Google handles headers or content-type for external bots?

Any tips or confirmations would be great – just want to understand if Drive is a reliable option or if external image hosting (Imgur, CDN, etc.) is the only safe route.

Thanks in advance!
—Francesco

2

Hi @Francesco_Finocchiar
Can you adjust the flow that adds the image URLs to the spreadsheet? You can use Google Drive’s Web View Link or Web Content Link.

image
image281×124 4.93 KB

If you cannot, you can extract the file ID from the URL using regex and get a share link using this module.
image
image224×252 6.45 KB

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3

Hi,
thank you for the suggestion! Your formula to extract the file ID and build the direct download link from the Google Drive URL worked perfectly. :white_check_mark:

I was now testing the same flow with Instagram, but unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t accept the URL, even if it’s a valid direct link. It seems that Instagram strictly requires the binary file, so I had to add an HTTP > Get a File module and pass the data as a file input to make it work.

Thanks again for the support — really helpful! :folded_hands:

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