Share Google Sheets Anonymously

Question

Is there a way to share Google Sheets(programmatically or otherwise) without revealing the Owner's name/Email address to the public/link receivers?

Answer 1

If you want to give the permission of viewer and editor to users for the shared spreadsheet, you are required to share the endpoint like https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/### fileId ###/edit?usp=sharing. In this case, users can retrieve your information including name and email from file ID using GET https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files/### fileId ###?key={YOUR_API_KEY} of Drive API. Namely, it means that the method using the file ID gives the owner information to others. So how about this workaround?

1. When the spreadsheet is published to web, the URL is like https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/### Not fileId ###/pubhtml. In this case, users cannot retrieve the file ID. So users cannot know the owner information.
   • In this case, the shared URL is like https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/### Not fileId ###/pubhtml.
2. Display the spreadsheet using Web Apps. In this case, users cannot retrieve file ID, because the owner information cannot be retrieved from the Web Apps URL.
   • In this case, In thiscase, the shared URL is like https://script.google.com/macros/s/### Not fileId ###/exec.
3. Display the spreadsheet using Google Visualization API and API key. In this case, users cannot retrieve file ID, because the owner information of the API key cannot be retrieved.
   • In this case, the shared URL is the URL of your own site.

I also think that there are other methods other than that mentioned in my answer.

Answer 2

If you use the Google Sheets sharing option, people able to access the spreadsheet is able to find it on Google Sheets (https://sheets.google.com) and on Google Drive (https://drive.google.com). There they will be able to see the spreadsheet owner and the spreadsheet collaborators either by the file listing or by the file information panel.

One alternative is to publish the spreadsheet to the web but this will limit what spreadsheet features are available to your spreadsheet users.

Another alternative is to use Google Apps Script, the Google Sheets API or a tool like Awesome Tables to publish the spreadsheet data but also, this will not include most of the the Google Sheets features.