BigQuery external table on Google Drive: "Permission denied while getting Drive credentials" using service account in TablePlus

[tainguyenuts]

Summary When connecting to BigQuery via TablePlus querying an external table linked to Google Drive results in a permission denied error.

Access Denied: BigQuery BigQuery: Permission denied while getting Drive credentials.

Root Cause This issue is caused by the service account not having the required Google Drive access scopes to read data from Drive into BigQuery.

Suggested Fix Update the service account or authentication flow in TablePlus to include the following OAuth scope when using BigQuery: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.readonly This scope allows BigQuery to access the Google Drive file used in the external table.

Environment App: TablePlus Database: BigQuery Platform: Windows

Additional Context This error does not occur when using the BigQuery web UI or CLI with properly scoped credentials. It appears to be a limitation or missing support in how TablePlus handles BigQuery service account authentication.

[sonswift]

Hi @tainguyenuts, thank for your feedback. Let me check it.

[tainguyenuts]

@sonswift I’m planning to buy a 3-seat license soon — just wanted to flag this issue in case it’s something that can be fixed. It’s quite important for us as we work with external tables in BigQuery that use Google Drive sources.