Read Google Sheets as JSON in Python

Use Python requests to send a public Google Sheet URL to SheetsDB. A successful response becomes a list of dictionaries when the first row contains headers.

Result: With hasHeader set to true, each Sheet row is returned as a Python dictionary after calling response.json().

Install requests

Shell

python -m pip install requests

Store the API key outside the script

Shell

export SHEETSDB_API_KEY='your_api_key'
export GOOGLE_SHEET_URL='https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/.../edit'

Fetch the rows

Python

import os
import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://www.sheetsdb.io/api/v1/getsheet",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['SHEETSDB_API_KEY']}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    json={
        "sheetRef": os.environ["GOOGLE_SHEET_URL"],
        "hasHeader": True,
    },
    timeout=20,
)

if response.ok:
    rows = response.json()
    for row in rows:
        print(row)
else:
    error = response.json()
    print(response.status_code, error.get("code"), error.get("error"))

Timeouts and retries

The example sets a 20-second client timeout. SheetsDB stops waiting for Google after 15 seconds and returns GOOGLE_REQUEST_TIMEOUT. Retry a temporary 502 or 504 with a short delay. For 429 responses, wait for the Retry-After value.

Data types

Cell values can arrive as strings, numbers, booleans, empty strings, or null, and a missing trailing cell may be omitted. Validate each row before inserting it into a typed model or database.