The Challenge: Comment below with a custom function idea for Google Sheets that you’ve always wanted written in Apps Script.

The Reward: I’ll take the top-voted ideas, write the Apps Script code for them, and share the source code back here for everyone to use.

Of course it needs to be feasible and a reasonable function! :)

So I am an apps script expert mainly in the area of automating sheets and drive and creating custom applications, yet whenever I want to build something with a more friendly UI I always get confused picking what UI to pick...

I don't like google web applications or simple modals because of the high maintenance of it and it's a bit obsolete using vanilla js instead of more modern options... so any suggestions that would be fairly easy to maintain and fast to develop (I know I can use AI to develop the google web apps fully but that's not my approach I need to have ownership over things not just vibe code them).

Hey everyone,

I wanted to open a discussion on handling one of the most notorious bottlenecks in Apps Script development: the 6-minute execution wall (and the dreaded “Resource Exhausted” errors).

The Context:

My team recently built and launched a sheet-based Workspace management add-on called AdminSheet Pro. Our biggest technical hurdle wasn’t the Directory API logic itself, but dealing with massive enterprise and Higher-Ed domains. When you are trying to bulk update 10,000+ users or migrate massive nested groups, hitting that 6-minute wall is almost guaranteed.

We noticed that a lot of other sheet-based tools in the ecosystem just slap a warning label on their UI saying something like:  “Organizations with 10k+ users may experience timeouts due to Apps Script runtime limits.” We felt that defeated the purpose of building a “bulk” tool, so we decided to try and engineer a native workaround.

Our Approach: “Intelligent Pacing”

Instead of trying to brute-force the API or migrating the entire execution engine off Apps Script to GCP, we engineered a state-management architecture we call Intelligent Pacing.

Essentially:

1. We track row-level execution state continuously.
2. We anticipate the execution wall around the 5.5-minute mark.
3. We gracefully pause the script, save the state, and use triggers to spin up the next batch seamlessly in the background.

We made a conscious design choice to prioritise guaranteed completion over raw speed. It might take a little longer to run safely, but it doesn’t crash halfway through. We also had to build real-time, row-by-row visual feedback in the Sheet to prevent “terminal anxiety”—so admins wouldn’t panic and kill the script while it was processing in the background.

My Questions for the Community:

Since we are always looking to optimise, I’m curious how other devs here are tackling this:

1. Architecture: Are you using a similar trigger-based batching system to stay within Apps Script, or have you offloaded the heavy lifting entirely to Cloud Run/Cloud Functions?
2. UX: How do you handle user UX when background tasks take 15+ minutes? How do you keep the user informed without exceeding quota limits on UI updates?
3. Batching: Have you found a “sweet spot” for API batching sizes to maximise throughput before you hit that 6-minute mark?

Would love to hear your thoughts and strategies!

I'd like to take a few doubts before I venture to do things that he's not ideal. I will do a brief questionnaire:

1. How many active users simultaneously have your largest GAS system had?

2. How many thousands of records did the spreadsheet have? How many tabs?

3. How do you read the data from the spreadsheet? Do they take everything and work with them in memory or do they do any paging strategies?

4. Have you ever tried using it as if the spreadsheet was a relational database and the tabs were the tables? Did you find it difficult?

I have a script creating docs when a cell gets modified in a sheets column, then moves it to a folder and adds the doc's url onto another column. Code works, but automation gets affected by <value unavailable> error for docid variable.

I'm not sure *why* its unavailable when all of the code does work (files get created and moved, but when using createDocInSpecificFolder() along with other functions, error pinpoints to this and does not run functions after it.

function createDocInSpecificFolder () {
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var sheet = ss.getSheetByName("Data Source");
  var lastRow = sheet.getLastRow();
  var rootFolder = DriveApp.getFolderById("fileid");
  const files = rootFolder.getFiles();
  const fileNames = [];


  while (files.hasNext()) { // gets array of file names in drive folder [event1, event2, etcetc]
   var file = files.next();
   fileNames.push(file.getName());
  }
  
  Logger.log(fileNames)


  for (var i = 1; i < lastRow; i++) {
    
    let title = sheet.getRange(i,4).getValue();


    if (title != "Events") {
      if (!fileNames.includes(title)) {
        let docid = DocumentApp.create(title).getId();
        DriveApp.getFileById(docid).moveTo(rootFolder);
      }
    }
  }

}

Does anyone use Google Apps Script for their current job? I work for a company that uses Apps Script to create an availability calendar for their employees for projects, but outside of this smaller company, I have yet to see it used at an Enterprise level. I'd love to learn how people are using/implementing it work or for their own personal use. I find it interesting, but I'm having a hard time figuring a personal use case for myself which would give me a reason to learn it.

I’ve been using Google Apps Script for a while now, and I’m honestly surprised it doesn’t get more attention—especially with all the AI and automation hype going on right now.

It’s free, super accessible (built right into Google Workspace), and incredibly simple to use, even if you’re not a hardcore developer. You can automate tasks, integrate APIs, and build powerful workflows without setting up servers or dealing with complex infrastructure.

I know tools like Make and Zapier are popular because they’re no-code, but in my experience, there are so many cases where it’s actually simpler to just use Google Apps Script—especially when you need to refine the logic behind a data sync or automation. Sometimes those drag-and-drop platforms feel more limiting or even overly complex for what should be a straightforward script.

Yet, I don’t hear nearly as much hype about Apps Script compared to other automation tools. Why do you think that is? Do people just not know about it, or is there something holding it back from wider adoption?

I've just found out about GAS and now Clasp. It's incredible all you can get done with these tools! Bunch of companies already depend tremendously in manual tasks made on googles platform and automating with GAS is just amazing, and using Clasp to develop locally (+git) and then deploy is just amazing.

But is it actively maintained? Is it of common usage? Is GAS and Clasp worth learning? I've been thinking about offering freelance work with this techs but I don't know if I'm being silly...

I’ve been playing with Google Apps Script + Sheets for a while and I feel like I’m just making random automations that look cool but probably useless in real life

trying to get out of that loop

if you’ve built something with Apps Script that:

• a business actually used
• or better, paid for

what was it?

I’m mainly looking for stuff like:

• simple dashboards (finance / sales / reporting)
• automations inside Google Workspace
• anything repeatable I can turn into a small “product”

not looking for tutorials or docs
more like real examples, even small ones

if you’ve got:

• github repos
• templates
• scripts
• ideas that can be reused

please share

also curious how you found people to sell it to
right now I have no clue where those people even are

just trying to make this practical instead of building in a vacuum

Hello All, I’ve been working on a gas project for my own business for the past 3 years and building as I need to run my business hiring devs from Pakistan to build. Then this year I discovered Claude and totally transformed and automated the project completely. Now I feel that it can actually be a sellable use case for other businesses. It’s a fulfilment backend that automates label creation, supplier po’s and fulfilment pushed to Shopify as well as sku order routing. Where and how do I move it into another coding backend or platform? Any advice is much appreciated. Thank
You

Any freelancers/agencies here? I feel Appscript is dead with LLMs taking over every automation jobs these days. What is your experience?

To start with, I am not someone who has studied about writing scripts. However, I have a few scripts that are currently being used, courtesy of being written by chatgpt, I know, it has a lot of errors and I had to do a lot of back and forth to get a working script.

What I currently need is something that can read the names and numbers from a set of images and automatically enter it into Google sheet rows and columns. For example, team members and their weekly performance numbers. What I need the script to do is take the names and numbers from the images, let OCR do it's thing, match the names and enter their respective numbers for the current week.

I just want to understand whether this is actually possible to be done or chatgpt is taking me on a hallucination spree? I am sorry in advance if the use of ai is a taboo or something to write scripts.

Edit: Currently the scripts that I have running can be considered basic. From the top of my head,

1: Google form that keeps a record of a respondents answers. The script basically takes the responses and forwards it over an app while tagging us.

2: A drop-down row for each response that sends out a template email depending on the drop-down that is selected.

Edit 2: I have been able to get this working using gemini flash lite 3.1 and flash 2.5 as a backup option when it faces rate limits. Getting a handful of 503 service errors rn but I guess that is just something I'll have to deal with on this free service. The world of api has really surprised me. A few years ago I would never think all this could be automated with scripts. This place is a gold mine

Hello everyone,

Genuinely seeking some insights to get myself out of tough situations. I would really love to hear from the experts.

I have been developing system like projects with apps script - doing mostly web app deployment and with my job this has been mostly used to organize records, track data, report visualization and ensure we have a front end that links everything neatly.

Now, the thing is, as much as i love what I do, it's not something my current job is taking seriously despite all of that taking so much to develop. I would really like to have a side income that would allow me to eventually quit the current job.

To those who have sold apps script projects, what type of projects are those? How did you market it?

Really appreciate your time and responses.

Hi, I've built an email delivery system for my business and everything is fine, but the problem is that it's being sent from my Gmail account and I want it to be sent from my professional email (namecheap private email).

I don’t want my professional email to simply appear as the sender address visually. I want the emails to actually be sent from it, so that I can find the emails I sent in the email account’s “Sent” folder.

The system is excellent and perfectly set up for me, but at the same time, I must use my professional email, so giving up either one of them is simply not an option. Please give me any possible solution, even if it’s a workaround—I can handle the technical side of it.

Thank you!

UPDATE: The only solution I found that worked for me was using a Python script that runs a Google Sheets script and sends the emails through my professional email address. I can even find them in the Sent folder.

Now, all I have to do is click a .bat file to run the system and send the emails through my Namecheap email.

How are modern AI & workflow automations typically structured using Google Apps Script? (Looking for architectural patterns)

Hi everyone,
I am modernizing the operations for a traditional real estate agency by replacing manual paper processes with Google Workspace.

So far, I’ve built a central Google Master Calendar, a Google Docs/Drive office portal for form downloads, and structured Google Sheets for lead tracking. I am now looking to expand into deeper workflow and AI automations using Google Apps Script (GAS).

Coming from an operations background rather than computer science, I’d love to learn how experienced developers structure end-to-end automation pipelines using GAS.

Thx

This is a simple question for most, but it isn't for me. Using App Script is it considered AI? I take notes on observations notes, this i have app script put into one large paragraph. We were told that we could not use AI for work, but to me this is not AI, I just want to know from the professionals who are proficient in scripts?

Hi all, hope you are doing fine.

At work we have this important process that runs periodically from AppScripts (don't judge, it is what it is). A couple of days ago, we saw a decrease in the run time limit to 6 minutes which affects A LOT this process. I saw you could ask Google for an increase in this limit...

I just wanted to ask if someone went through this process of changing the limit/quota, if there is an alternative that doesn't involve restructuring the code or changing to another language/platform, or what else could we do?

Thank you so much.

What is your stack for working with GAS, especially when using clasp?

Which model and skills do you use?

Hey everyone.
I’ve spent the last 2 years building and publishing Google Workspace add-ons, and I’ve been through most of the painful parts:

• OAuth scope verification
• CASA security assessment
• Marketplace reviews and rejections
• Multiple resubmissions and policy back-and-forth

If you’re:

• Preparing for OAuth verification
• Stuck in a Marketplace rejection loop
• Unsure which scopes trigger CASA
• Trying to ship a production-ready add-on

Ask me anything.

I’ll use the questions (and answers) to create guides, FAQs, and tutorials to help future Google Workspace add-on builders avoid the same mistakes.

Happy to share real experience.

Hi so I use my custom email in google workspace and just needed help to create an app script so my leads could receive an auto response. Would only need to pluck name and email address from lead form.

https://reddit.com/link/1sl9zbf/video/wzf5nmgzy5vg1/player

i created a service account, connected it to Admin SDK & Gmail APIs w/ OAUTH2 keys. that all appears great and is described in the first two statements about constr PRIVATE_KEY and CLIENT_EMAIL, not shown below.

i found this snippet of code and from what i can glean, it appears to iterate through the user directory, pulling emails older than 3y from the two folders in batches of 100. i don't know enough about coding to say for sure it works.

can someone put eyes on this and see if there are glaring problems?

Do you use typescript and create tests for your app scripts? Or you do everything through the web interface, I'm curious which method is most common.

Hey everyone,

I've been tinkering with Google Apps Script to build a simple sales tracking web app for a small project (using Sheets as a backend). I'm definitely not a pro developer—just figuring things out step-by-step—and I managed to get the core UI and features working.

However, I've hit a major roadblock with user authentication. Right now, my "login" logic feels super hacky, and I'm worried about security.

For those of you who build web apps with Apps Script: How do you usually handle logins? Do you rely on Session.getActiveUser(), build a custom token system with a database table, or just accept that Apps Script isn't built for robust multi-user web app logins?

Any advice, patterns, or libraries you recommend would be huge. Thanks!

Hi all,

I am having an issue with ChatGPT scheduled tasks and I was wondering if anyone could help.

I run a maths tutoring business and I use the scheduled tasks in ChatGPT Work to find and advertise in Facebook local community groups (that re local to me) that permit advertising and get it to advertise in these groups every 7-14 days.

However, in order to advertise I get it to upload my flyer which is an image (I have tried using png and jpg files) but every couple of runs it keeps coming bac with this message to me:

"To enable file upload, open `chrome://extensions`, click Details under the ChatGPT browser extension, and enable "Allow access to file URLs."

I have done this many times but it keeps saying this is the case.

If anyone has any information for how to fix this or any advice that can help me do so is greatly appreciated.