How to make Shorts from a video on Google Drive or Dropbox without downloading it
Blog · · Vyexa team · 3 min read
To make Shorts from a video that sits on Google Drive or Dropbox, you do not need to download it to your computer first. Share the file by link, paste that link into Vyexa, and it is imported like a YouTube video.
Below: how to share the file correctly, why some links fail, and what the limits are.
Why import from the cloud at all
Long recordings rarely live on YouTube. A podcast, a webinar, a raw stream or a client's footage usually ends up in a Drive or Dropbox folder. Downloading a 2 GB file to a laptop and uploading it again over home Wi-Fi is the slowest part of the job. Importing by link skips both steps: the file goes from the cloud to us directly.
Step 1. Share the file by link
- Google Drive: right-click the video → Share → General access → «Anyone with the link» → Copy link.
- Dropbox: hover the video → Share → set access to «Anyone with the link» → Copy link.
Share the file itself, not the folder. A folder link holds many files, and we would not know which one you mean, so folder links are refused with a hint.
Step 2. Paste the link
- Open the dashboard and paste the link into the same field you would use for a YouTube link. You do not need to edit it: we turn the «view» link into a direct download ourselves.
- Pick the language of the speech and continue as usual: choose the look on Clip Setup and generate.
The same works through the public API: send the Drive or Dropbox link as the source URL.
When the link fails
- The file is not shared. This is the usual reason. Without «Anyone with the link», Drive and Dropbox show a sign-in page instead of the file, and we get nothing to import. Check it by opening the link in a private browser window: if it asks you to sign in, it will not work for us either.
- It is a folder link. Open the video file and copy the link to that file.
- The video is too long. The same limits apply as to any import. Free accepts sources up to 120 minutes.
- Google limits downloads of a popular file. If many people downloaded the same file today, Drive may refuse for a while. Try later or upload the file directly.
We have not counted yet how many imports come from Drive and Dropbox, so we give no figure for it.
If the link is from YouTube and it fails, see the reasons YouTube links fail to import.
Try it: paste a Drive or Dropbox link at vyexa.net. Free needs no card.