Joelclaw google-docs-md

Export Google Docs as clean markdown via native URL parameter. No auth needed for public docs. Use when fetching Google Doc content for vault ingestion, runbook building, or any doc-to-markdown pipeline.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/joelhooks/joelclaw

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/joelhooks/joelclaw "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/google-docs-md" ~/.claude/skills/joelhooks-joelclaw-google-docs-md && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/google-docs-md/SKILL.md

source content

Google Docs Markdown Export

Google Docs natively supports markdown export via a URL parameter. This is the most reliable way to get markdown from a Google Doc — better than defuddle, jina, or any scraping tool.

URL Pattern

For any Google Doc URL like:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/{DOC_ID}/edit?tab=t.0

Replace everything after the document ID with

export?format=md

https://docs.google.com/document/d/{DOC_ID}/export?format=md

Extracting the Document ID

The DOC_ID is the long alphanumeric string between

/d/

and the next

# From any Google Docs URL, extract the ID:
echo "https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mt8aYM88Jj5qkep1xYC5vj0wBlbX2u6gdxhf_puaiQI/edit?tab=t.0" \
  | grep -oP '(?<=/d/)[^/]+'
# → 1mt8aYM88Jj5qkep1xYC5vj0wBlbX2u6gdxhf_puaiQI

Fetching

# Public docs — no auth needed, follow the 307 redirect:
curl -L "https://docs.google.com/document/d/${DOC_ID}/export?format=md" -o output.md

# Private docs — needs OAuth bearer token:
curl -L "https://docs.google.com/document/d/${DOC_ID}/export?format=md" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${TOKEN}" -o output.md

Important: The endpoint returns a

redirect. Always use

curl -L

(follow redirects) or equivalent.

Other Export Formats

The same pattern works for other formats:

```
export?format=pdf
```
— PDF
```
export?format=docx
```
— Word
```
export?format=txt
```
— Plain text
```
export?format=html
```
— HTML
```
export?format=epub
```
— ePub

Batch Pattern

When you have a list of Google Doc URLs (e.g. extracted from Front emails):

# Extract doc IDs from a file of URLs
grep -oP '(?<=/d/)[^/]+' urls.txt | sort -u | while read id; do
  echo "Fetching $id..."
  curl -sL "https://docs.google.com/document/d/${id}/export?format=md" \
    -o "docs/${id}.md"
  sleep 1  # Be polite
done

When to Use

Always prefer this over defuddle/scraping for Google Docs
Works for public docs without any authentication
Native markdown quality is superior to any HTML→markdown conversion
Handles tables, formatting, links, images (as URLs) correctly

Limitations

Private docs require a valid OAuth token (use
```
gog
```
when available)
Very large docs may take a few seconds
Images are referenced as URLs, not embedded
Comments and suggestions are not included in the export