The third quarter of 2025 has been a busy one, with a host of updates across various APIs. This quarter, there has been a strong focus on enhancing app authentication, improving API capabilities, and providing more granular control for Google Drive. Here’s a roundup of the key updates from July, August, and September that you need to know about.
Chat API
The Chat API has received a number of significant updates, with a strong emphasis on expanding the capabilities of Chat apps through app authentication. In a new developer preview, several methods, including those for getting and listing space events, now support app authentication with administrator approval. This allows apps to act on behalf of a user who has granted consent, opening up new possibilities for automation and integration.
In addition to the new authentication features, the Chat API now allows for the creation of carousels in card messages, providing a richer and more interactive user experience. We’ve also seen an increase in per-space quota limits for writing messages and reactions, which will be a welcome change for high-traffic apps.
Other notable updates for the Chat API include the ability to quote messages, read metadata for various chip types, and the general availability of building Chat apps as Google Workspace Add-ons.
Google Workspace Admin SDK
The Admin SDK has seen several important updates in Q3, particularly within the Reports API. Developers can now get activity events forGmail andGemini in Workspace Apps, providing greater insight into how these tools are being used within an organisation.
A key feature for Drive management is the introduction of activity events for pre-fetched content, allowing administrators to better monitor and understand data access patterns.
Gmail API
The Gmail API has introduced Deal Cards in the Promotions tab, allowing developers to create more engaging and actionable promotional content. For organisations using client-side encryption, the API now supports smart cards, enhancing security for sensitive communications.
Google Drive API
A significant change has been made to how download, print, and copy restrictions are applied, giving owners and organisers more granular control over content. Previously, these restrictions could only be applied to users with reader roles, but now, owner and organizer roles can extend these restrictions to users with writer permissions as well.
For individual files, developers should now use the itemDownloadRestriction field, with the corresponding capabilities.canChangeItemDownloadRestriction field available to check modification permissions. Similar controls have been introduced for shared drives, using the downloadRestriction field within the Restrictions object. While the previous copyRequiresWriterPermission field remains, its functionality has changed, and Google recommends using the new system to manage content restrictions.
For developers working with events, the Drive API, in conjunction with the Google Workspace Events API, now supports subscriptions to a variety of Drive events, including file additions, moves, edits, and access proposals. This is a powerful feature for building reactive and real-time applications.
Google Workspace Events API
The Events API has been a major focus this quarter, with new features for both Chat and Drive. As mentioned the ability to subscribe to Drive events is a significant step forward, enabling developers to build applications that respond in real-time to changes in a user’s Drive.
For Chat, the Events API now allows apps to subscribe to space events using app authentication with administrator approval, further expanding the capabilities of Chat apps.
Google Workspace Add-ons
The big news for add-on developers is the ability to build Google Chat apps as Google Workspace Add-ons, which is now generally available. This provides a unified framework for extending the functionality of Google Workspace applications.
Key Deprecations and Breaking Changes
As with any quarter, there have been some deprecations and breaking changes to be aware of:
- Google Apps Script: The advanced service for the Google Analytics Management API and Reporting API is deprecated and has been replaced by the Google Analytics Data API Advanced Service.
- Google Workspace Add-ons: The default function names for “Added to space” and “Removed from space” triggers in Chat apps have changed. Developers will need to update their function names to avoid errors.
It will be exciting to see what the community builds with these new tools!
Member of Google Developers Experts Program for Google Workspace (Google Apps Script) and interested in supporting Google Workspace Devs.