Note: Google may have prevented the use of this method by the time you read this (something to do with 3rd party cookies). At time of writing, while it may have stopped working on websites, it still seems to work OK in AI2. Currently, the future recommended alternative is to host your images somewhere other than google drive!

Google Drive doesn’t directly provide a properly linked url to a file stored there, you have to edit the shared url yourself in order for the file to display, or download for outside of google drive.

• Ensure the image file you want is shared as “Anyone with the link” or “Public on the web”

• Get the sharing link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_NPfCfgpq75RWAyKl8asKQU3hcnjUu4e

or

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_NPfCfgpq75RWAyKl8asKQU3hcnjUu4e/view?usp=share_link

• Replace     “open?”    with     “uc?export=download&“

• Or  replace "file/d/" with      “uc?export=download&id=“ then delete "/view?usp=share_link"

• Your url should now look like this:

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1_NPfCfgpq75RWAyKl8asKQU3hcnjUu4e

• Your image should now display.  Just using the link in the browser address bar may offer a download, if this is an issues replace “download” with “view“

• The above edited link displayed:

This may also work with just uc?id=

https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1_NPfCfgpq75RWAyKl8asKQU3hcnjUu4e