Integrate Lucid with Google Drive

Connect Lucid with Google Drive

To connect your Lucid account to your Google Drive account, follow these steps:

1. In Lucid, click your profile image or initials in the upper-right corner.
2. Click Account settings.
3. Select the Apps & Integrations tab.
   • Select Lucidchart from the top of the page to set up the Lucidchart integration.
   • Select Lucidspark from the top of the page to set up the Lucidspark integration.
4. Under "Google Drive", click Link to Drive.
5. Select the Google account you want to use and click through the dialog to grant Lucid permissions to your Google account.

Your account is now linked to Google Drive, and you can sync Lucid documents you created to your Drive account, create documents from Google Drive, and set up weekly backups. See the sections below to learn more about the difference between automatic sync and backups.

If you want to link both Lucidchart and Lucidspark to Google Drive, repeat the steps above for each product.

Match email address to link Lucid to Google Drive

In order to connect your Lucid account with Drive, both accounts need to be connected to the same email address. If you are currently using two different email addresses for each, please follow these steps to properly connect:

1. Change your Lucid email address in your account settings.
2. Click Save.
3. Log out of all Google accounts, then log into the Google account that is using email address associated with your Lucid account.
4. Navigate back to your Lucid account settings and connect to your Google Drive account.

Link correct Lucid account to Google Drive

If Lucid prevents you from changing your email to match the email address associated with your Drive account, it is likely that you accidentally created a new Lucid account through Drive. Follow these instructions to remove your accidental Lucid account and sync the correct account with Drive.

1. Log in to your new accidental Lucid account. You can use Google single sign-on if the accidental account uses the same email address as Drive.
2. Navigate to your account settings.
3. Select the Apps & Integrations tab from the left-side menu.
4. Under "Google Drive", select Unlink Account.
5. Select User Settings from the left-side menu.
6. Click Delete Account at the bottom of the page and follow the prompts to permanently delete your account.
7. Log in to your active Lucid account and change your Lucid email address in your account settings to match your Google Drive email address exactly.
8. Click Save.
9. Log out of your Lucid account and any Google Accounts.
10. Clear your cookies.
11. Log in to your Lucid account using the newly entered email address with the same password as before.
12. Go the Google Drive section of your Account settings and click Link to Google Drive.
13. Log in to your Google Drive account using the same email address as your active Lucid account.

Access Lucid from Google Drive

You can navigate to Lucid directly from Google Drive. To do so, follow these steps:

1. From Google Drive, select New from the top-left corner.
2. Click More.
3. Select Lucidchart or Lucidspark.

You will be redirected to the Lucid Home Page, where you can create a new document by clicking + New in the top-left corner.

Export to Google Drive

After creating a document in Lucid, you can choose to export the file as a PDF, PNG, or JPEG directly to your Google Drive account.

To export to Drive:

1. From your Lucid document, open the More menu from the top-left of the canvas.
2. Hover your cursor over “Export”.
3. Click Document to Google Drive.
4. Choose the file type and other preferences and click Done.
5. A blue message box will appear appear in the bottom-left corner of the Lucid document when the download is complete.

The exported file will appear in the “Lucid Integrations” folder of your Google Drive and in your Recent documents.

Automatic sync vs. backups

Automatic synchronization

• You can choose to have the diagrams you create in Lucid automatically synced to Google Drive. This means you can access all of your Lucid documents via Google Drive without going to Lucid. However, you will not be able to edit Lucid documents unless you open them in Lucid.
• All synced files will initially appear in a folder called “Lucid Integration” in your Google Drive account. Once they appear, you are free to move them to other folders in your Drive. Do not delete the original “Lucid Integration” folder unless you no longer wish to use the integration.

Backup 

• If you are on an Individual, Team, or Enterprise account, you can set up a weekly backup of your Lucidchart documents to Google Drive. If you set this up, you will receive an LAF backup file in your Google Drive account every week. You can then restore your documents to Lucidchart, as explained in our Lucid for your Google Workspace Domain article.

Permissions

Lucid’s integration with Google Drive requires a few permissions to give you a seamless diagramming experience: 

• View basic information about your account: Allows Lucid to auto-provision an account and bring you immediately into the editor rather than to a registration or sign-in page.
• View your email address: Enables Google single sign-on.
• View and manage Google Drive files that you have opened or created with Lucid: Ensures that your most recent Lucid file is synced to your Drive account.
• Perform these operations when I’m not using the application: Required for automated backup of files on a weekly basis as selected in your account settings.

Collaborate via Google Drive

If you have automatic sync enabled, you can easily collaborate on Lucid documents by sharing documents via Google Drive.

To share a document on Google Drive, follow these steps:

1. Right-click any file from the “Lucid Integrations” folder in your Google Drive.
2. Select Share.
3. Enter your collaborator’s information.
4. Click Done.

Your collaborator can access the Lucid document by:

1. Right-click the file in Google Drive.
2. Click Open With.
3. Select Lucidchart or Lucidspark.

Please note the following:

• If you share a document via Google Drive, these sharing permissions will not be noted in the document’s collaboration settings on Lucid. To remove collaborator’s permissions, simply unshare the document on Google Drive.
• Permissions will be inherited from Lucid or Google Drive based on which one has greater permissions. For example, if a document is shared with Edit access in Lucid to a user who only has read access in Google Drive, the user will still receive edit access.

Use Lucid with Google Team Drive

Lucid's integration with Google Team Drive allows you to move Lucid files from your personal drive to your Team Drive. Permissions will be inherited from Lucid or Team Drive based on which one has greater permissions. For example, if a document is shared with Edit access in Lucid to a user who only has read access in Team Drive, the user will still receive edit access.

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