What this is: most people connect Google in two taps at claude.ai and never open a Console. This page is the deeper path, the one you use when your assistant needs Google Drive, Sheets, Docs, or full email, not just calendar and drafts. You create one Google credential of your own, once, and hand it to the gws tool.
What to do: install the tool, then walk the Console steps below. There are two landmarks that trip people up, and both are called out here: publishing your app so it does not expire, and the one-time "unverified app" screen for your own app. Follow the steps in order and you will land on a working connection.
The gws connection runs through Claude Code, the command-line tool. Pick your system and paste the one line into a terminal.
Open Terminal (press Cmd+Space, type Terminal, press Enter), then paste:
Open PowerShell from the Start menu (type "PowerShell"). You do not need to run it as Administrator. Paste:
Prefer Windows' package manager? winget install Anthropic.ClaudeCode works too. Full Windows walkthrough: Install Claude Code on Windows.
Close and reopen the terminal afterward so the claude command is picked up. New to the terminal entirely? Text Chase and he will do this part with you.
Google recently renamed this area. The setup opens a Console tab for you, or you can go there yourself:
Down the left side you will see Overview, Branding, Audience, Data Access, and Clients. Those five tabs are the whole job. If Google asks you to create or pick a project first, create one with any name and continue.
Older guides call this the "OAuth consent screen." Same place, new name. Look for the Branding and Audience tabs and you are in the right spot.
Open the Branding tab and click Get Started if it offers it. Google walks you through a short four-part form:
Click Create at the end. This is only the name Google shows on the permission screen. Nobody but you ever sees this app.
This is the step that silently breaks assistants a week later, so it matters. Open the Audience tab and look at the Publishing status and User type.
If your email is a Google Workspace account (your own company domain), click Make internal. Internal apps never expire, never show a warning, and never need Google's review. You are finished with this step.
If your email is a personal @gmail.com account, your app is External. Find the Publish app button on the Audience tab and click it, then confirm. That moves you from Testing to In production.
An External app left in Testing kills its own login after 7 days, and your assistant quietly stops working. Adding yourself as a "test user" is not enough. You have to click Publish app. Publishing to production is what keeps the connection alive.
Open the Clients tab, then:
A box pops up titled OAuth client created with your Client ID and Client secret, a copy button beside each.
Google now hides the client secret the moment you close that box. So while it is open, either copy both values into the terminal when it asks, or click Download JSON to save them. If you close it first, you cannot get the secret back, and you would create a fresh client to start over.
Paste the Client ID, then the Client secret, into the terminal when it prompts for each.
To finish, the tool opens one browser tab and you will see "Google hasn't verified this app." That is expected. It is your own app, and Google has not reviewed a single-person app like this. It is safe to continue.
The browser shows "authentication complete." The terminal saves the connection and prints that it is done. Your full Google access is live.
Reply to your setup email or text Chase directly, and he will jump in.