For Developers‎ > ‎How-Tos‎ > ‎

API Keys

Speech API:
It is NOT possible to get additional quota for Chrome's Speech API. Look at the Cloud Speech API instead. Do NOT post to any Chromium groups/mailing lists for questions about the Speech API. This page is about building Chromium. If you have arrived on this page to try to get API keys for some other purpose, you should not follow the instructions on this page. Do NOT post to any Chromium groups/mailing lists to ask how to get quota for an API. The section "Getting Keys for Your Chromium Derivative" below has the same answer you will get from the list.
Some features of Chromium use Google APIs, and to access those APIs, either an API Key or a set of OAuth 2.0 tokens is required. Setting up API keys is optional. If you don't do it, the specific APIs using Google services won't work in your custom build, but all other features will run normally.

Googlers only: if you need a new API enabled in chrome, use http://b/new?component=165132

 If you build Chromium and Chromium OS yourself setting up API keys is mandatory so that it will allow user login on Chromebooks!

You can specify the API keys to use either when you build Chromium, or at runtime using environment variables. First, you need to acquire keys for yourself.

Software distribution with keys acquired for yourself is allowed, but the keys themselves cannot be shared with parties outside the legal entity that accepted the API ToS. Keep in mind that a number of the APIs will have no or very limited quota and not all of the APIs have additional quota available for purchase.


Acquiring Keys

  1. Make sure you are a member of chromium-dev@chromium.org (you can just subscribe to chromium-dev and choose not to receive mail). For convenience, the APIs below are only visible to people subscribed to that group.
  2. Make sure you are logged in with the Google account associated with the email address that you used to subscribe to chromium-dev.
  3. Go to https://cloud.google.com/console
  4. Find the Create Project button (e.g. click the hamburger menu at the top left, then Home, then Create a Project)
  5. (Optional) You may add other members of your organization or team on the Team tab.
  6. Open the API Manager > Library from the hamburger menu, search for all of the following APIs. If you're a member of the chromeos-dev Google group you should see all of them. For each of these APIs click on them when found by the search, and then click on "Enable API" button at the top, read and agree to the Terms of Service that is shown, check the "I have read and agree to <API name> Terms of Service" checkbox and click Accept: (This list might be out of date; try searching for APIs starting with "Chrome" or having "for Chrome" in the name.)
    • Calendar API
    • Contacts API
    • Drive API (Optional, enable this for Files.app on Chrome OS and SyncFileSystem API)
    • Chrome Remote Desktop API
    • Chrome Spelling API
    • Chrome Suggest API
    • Chrome Sync API
    • Chrome Translate Element
    • Chrome Web Store API
    • Chrome OS Hardware ID API (Optional, Chrome OS)
    • Device Registration API (Optional, Chrome OS)
    • Google Cloud DNS API
    • Google Cloud Storage
    • Google Cloud Storage JSON API
    • Google Maps Geolocation API (requires enabling billing but is free to use; you can skip this one, in which case geolocation features of Chrome will not work)
    • Google Maps Time Zone API
    • Google Now For Chrome API (Optional, enabled to show Google Now cards)
    • Google+ API
    • Nearby Messages API
    • Safe Browsing API
    • Speech API (See the "Speech API" box at the top of the page)

    If any of these APIs are not shown, recheck step 1.
  1. Go to the Credentials sub tab under the API Manager.
  2. Click the "Create credentials" button then click on the OAuth client ID item in the drop-down list.
    • Click on the "Configure consent screen" button. Fill in the "Product name" (name it anything you want) and other details if you have available then click on "Save" at the bottom. 
    • Return to the Credentials tab and click the "Add credentials" button again, then select "OAuth 2.0 client ID" from the drop-down list.
    • In the "Application type" section check the "Other" option and give it a name in the "Name" text box, then click "Create"
  3. In the pop-up window that appears you'll see a client ID and a "client secret" string. Copy and paste those in a text file on your dev box then click OK to dismiss it.
    • A new item should now appear in the "OAuth 2.0 client IDs" list. You can click on the name of your client id to retrieve the ID and secret at any time. In the next sections, we will refer to the values of the “Client ID” and “Client secret” fields.
  4. Click the "Create credentials" button again on the same page.
    • In the pop-over window that shows up click the "API key" button.
    • A pop-over should show up giving you the API key. Copy and paste it in a text file to save it, although you can access it later as well.
    • Click OK to dismiss this.
You should now have an API key and a OAuth 2.0 client ID in on the Credentials tab. The next sections will refer to the value of the “API key” field too.
  2. Note that the keys you have now acquired are not for distribution purposes and must not be shared with other users.

  1. Providing Keys at Build Time
If you are building Chromium yourself, you can provide keys as part of your build configuration, that way they are always baked into your binary.

Specify three variables in your args.gn file (which you can edit by running gn args out/your_out_dir_here)

google_api_key = "your_api_key"
google_default_client_id = "your_client_id"
google_default_client_secret = "your_client_secret"



Providing Keys at Runtime

If you prefer, you can build a Chromium binary (or use a pre-built Chromium binary) without API keys baked in, and instead provide them at runtime. To do so, set the environment variables GOOGLE_API_KEY, GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID and GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET to your "API key", "Client ID" and "Client secret" values respectively.

On Chromium OS to specify the keys as environment variables append them to the end of /etc/chrome_dev.conf:
GOOGLE_API_KEY=your_api_key
GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id
GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret


Rate limit when signing into Google account from Chromium builds

Starting with Chromium M69, when the browser is set up with an OAuth 2.0 client ID and client secret, signing in with your Google Account to any Google web property also generates an OAuth 2.0 token for Chromium. As this token gives access to various Google services that handle user data (e.g. Chrome sync), for security and privacy reasons the generation of this OAuth 2.0 token is rate limited. If you are hitting this rate limit, then signing in to any Google web property will also fail as the OAuth 2.0 token cannot be generated. To avoid this error, remove your OAuth 2.0 client ID and client secret from your build to stop generating tokens when users sign in to Google web properties (remove google_default_client_id, google_default_client_secret from gn args and GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID and GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET from your environment settings) .


Getting Keys for Your Chromium Derivative

Many of the Google APIs used by Chromium code are specific to Google Chrome and not intended for use in derived products.  In the API Console (http://developers.google.com/console) you may be able to purchase additional quota for some of the APIs listed above.  For APIs that do not have a "Pricing" link, additional quota is not available for purchase.

As explained in section above, signing in to Google web is rate limited if the developer has configured a client ID and client secret. To avoid hitting this limit in Chromium Derivatives, please remove the OAuth 2.0 client ID and client secret from your build configuration.

google_api_key = "your_api_key"
google_default_client_id = "your_client_id"
google_default_client_secret = "your_client_secret"



Comments