⚠️ Status: currently non-functional. Google changed how PDF pages are fetched in Drive previews; downloads no longer work. No ETA for a fix. Kept public as an educational Flutter / WebView case study.
Flutter app that attempted to save restricted Google Drive Doc/PDF previews by injecting scripts in a WebView and posting page images to a local shelf server on-device.
webview_flutter cannot download Drive-restricted PDFs directly. This app opened the preview, captured pages as images via injected JavaScript, and POSTed them to localhost:8080 so files could be written to device storage and opened from an in-app Downloads screen.
Promo video (historical): YouTube
- Repo: https://github.com/MS-Jahan/GDocUnblocker
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD80-iX3zTs
- Live demo: none — app does not work against current Google Drive PDF previews
- WebView integration with multiple unblock/capture methods
- On-device local server (
shelf) to receive file POSTs - Downloads page to browse/open saved files
- Storage permission handling (including manage-external-storage on Android)
Flutter / Dart · webview_flutter · shelf · permission_handler · path_provider / android_path_provider · flutter_downloader · device_info_plus
From pubspec.yaml (run flutter pub get):
webview_flutter,flutter_custom_tabsshelf,permission_handlerflutter_downloader,path_provider,android_path_providerdevice_info_plus
SDK constraint: Dart >=3.4.3 <4.0.0
Prerequisites: Flutter SDK, Android SDK.
git clone https://github.com/MS-Jahan/GDocUnblocker.git
cd GDocUnblocker
flutter pub get
flutter run- Paste a Google Drive PDF preview URL.
- Choose “Faster (Recommended)” or “Slower, Low Res”.
- Open WebView → Generate PDF → file saved via local server → view under Downloads.
- Open Drive preview in WebView; inject capture scripts.
- Local server on
localhost:8080receives POSTed page/image data. - Save into device download directory; refresh Downloads UI.