Google Photos Request had insufficient authentication scopes

[glostis]

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

I am trying to setup rclone to list my albums on Google Photos, but face a 403 error:

couldn't list albums: Request had insufficient authentication scopes. (403 PERMISSION_DENIED)

Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.

rclone v1.68.2

• os/version: ubuntu 22.04 (64 bit)
• os/kernel: 5.15.0-127-generic (x86_64)
• os/type: linux
• os/arch: amd64
• go/version: go1.23.3
• go/linking: static
• go/tags: none

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

Google Photos

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

rclone lsd remote:album/

The rclone config contents with secrets removed.

[remote]
type = google photos
token = {"access_token":"***","token_type":"Bearer","refresh_token":"***","expiry":"2024-12-28T10:46:05.823972699+01:00"}

A log from the command with the -vv flag

2024/12/28 09:48:54 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.68.2" starting with parameters ["rclone" "-vv" "lsd" "remote:album/"]
2024/12/28 09:48:54 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "remote:album/"
2024/12/28 09:48:54 DEBUG : Using config file from "/home/glostis/.config/rclone/rclone.conf"
2024/12/28 09:48:54 DEBUG : fs cache: renaming cache item "remote:album/" to be canonical "remote:album"
2024/12/28 09:48:54 DEBUG : Google Photos path "album": List: dir=""
2024/12/28 09:48:54 DEBUG : Google Photos path "album": >List: err=couldn't list albums: Request had insufficient authentication scopes. (403 PERMISSION_DENIED)
2024/12/28 09:48:54 ERROR : : error listing: couldn't list albums: Request had insufficient authentication scopes. (403 PERMISSION_DENIED)
2024/12/28 09:48:54 DEBUG : 7 go routines active
2024/12/28 09:48:54 INFO  : Google Photos path "album": Committing uploads - please wait...
2024/12/28 09:48:54 NOTICE: Failed to lsd with 2 errors: last error was: couldn't list albums: Request had insufficient authentication scopes. (403 PERMISSION_DENIED)

[asdffdsa (jojothehumanmonkey)]

welcome to the forum,

first try, the simplest command possible.
rclone lsd remote: -vv

if that does not work, then start over, create a new remote and test again.

[glostis]

Thank you for your answer!

I forgot to mention it in the original post, but the « root » command works:

rclone lsd remote: -vv

2024/12/28 18:35:10 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.68.2" starting with parameters ["rclone" "lsd" "remote:" "-vv"]
2024/12/28 18:35:10 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "remote:"
2024/12/28 18:35:10 DEBUG : Using config file from "/home/glostis/.config/rclone/rclone.conf"
2024/12/28 18:35:10 DEBUG : Google Photos path "": List: dir=""
2024/12/28 18:35:10 DEBUG : Google Photos path "": >List: err=<nil>
          -1 2024-12-28 18:35:10        -1 album
          -1 2024-12-28 18:35:10        -1 feature
          -1 2024-12-28 18:35:10        -1 media
          -1 2024-12-28 18:35:10        -1 shared-album
          -1 2024-12-28 18:35:10        -1 upload
2024/12/28 18:35:10 DEBUG : 6 go routines active
2024/12/28 18:35:10 INFO  : Google Photos path "": Committing uploads - please wait...

but any command that is supposed to list actual photos fails with the same error:

rclone lsd remote:media/all -vv

2024/12/28 18:36:56 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.68.2" starting with parameters ["rclone" "lsd" "remote:media/all" "-vv"]
2024/12/28 18:36:56 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "remote:media/all"
2024/12/28 18:36:56 DEBUG : Using config file from "/home/glostis/.config/rclone/rclone.conf"
2024/12/28 18:36:56 DEBUG : Google Photos path "media/all": List: dir=""
2024/12/28 18:36:57 DEBUG : Google Photos path "media/all": >List: err=couldn't list files: Request had insufficient authentication scopes. (403 PERMISSION_DENIED)
2024/12/28 18:36:57 ERROR : : error listing: couldn't list files: Request had insufficient authentication scopes. (403 PERMISSION_DENIED)
2024/12/28 18:36:57 DEBUG : 7 go routines active
2024/12/28 18:36:57 INFO  : Google Photos path "media/all": Committing uploads - please wait...
2024/12/28 18:36:57 NOTICE: Failed to lsd with 2 errors: last error was: couldn't list files: Request had insufficient authentication scopes. (403 PERMISSION_DENIED)

I have already removed and re-created the remote several times, trying both to leave a blank client id/secret, and using some client id/secret I have created. In both cases, I get the same error message.

[glostis]

I should also add that using the Google Drive remote on the same Google account works fine, so the problem seems specific to the Google Photos remote.

Moreover, I have tried to access Google Photos using other Google accounts I have, and I face the same issue with all Google accounts so it is not specific to a single account.

[glostis]

After closer inspection, it turns out that the problem was — as often — between the chair and the keyboard

I had not noticed that a checkbox needed to be checked in the top right of the authentication page (see screenshot below).

Once checked, rclone has sufficient permissions to interact with the Google Photos API, and the error goes away