Embedding Google Files in monday.com: Your Options Compared

If you’re trying to bring a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide into a monday.com board, you have three realistic options: a plain link column, monday’s built-in iframe embed view, or Google Easy Embed. Each one has a different trade-off between setup speed, security, and how usable the file is once embedded.

Below is the practical comparison and a recommendation for each scenario.

Option 1 — Link column

The simplest path: add a Link column to your board, paste the Google file URL, done.

Good for:

• Quick reference — a single URL anyone can click.
• Boards where you have many different Google files per row.

Trade-offs:

• Clicking the link opens Google in a new tab — context-switching every time.
• No preview, no real-time editing on the board.
• Sharing permissions are entirely up to the Google file itself — anyone clicking the link from a public board could hit a “request access” screen.

Option 2 — Built-in iframe / embed view

Monday.com ships a generic embed view that can load any URL inside an iframe, including a Google file.

Good for:

• Showing a Google file inline without installing a third-party app.
• Truly any URL (not just Google) — broad but shallow support.

Trade-offs:

• Authentication is fragile. The iframe asks Google to render the file as the current user’s Google session in another tab. If your colleague isn’t already signed in to Google in the same browser, the embed shows a blank space or a login prompt instead of the file.
• No access-mode control. You can’t say “this board should show the doc in View-only mode” — whichever Google permissions exist on the file are what your team gets.
• No display-mode control. You get whatever Google shows in iframe mode, including (often) a banner saying the file is being displayed in a third-party site.
• Cross-origin restrictions break some features (commenting, certain toolbars).

Option 3 — Google Easy Embed

Google Easy Embed is a free monday.com app that uses Google’s official OAuth + Drive Picker API to make embedded files reliable.

Good for:

• Boards where the same Google file lives at the centre of the work — a project plan in Slides, a tracker in Sheets, a spec in Docs, a feedback form, a flow in Drawings.
• Teams that want predictable behaviour for everyone, not just users who happen to be signed into Google in the right browser tab.

How it solves the iframe problems:

• One-time connection per user. Each user clicks “Connect to Google” once. From then on, the embed loads against their authenticated Google session reliably.
• Three access modes. Choose View, Comment, or Edit per board view. Set “View” on a public board and your team can read but not modify; set “Edit” on the internal planning board.
• Three display modes. Choose Content Only (clean, just the doc), Toolbar (Google’s editing toolbar visible), or Full (the complete Google interface). Pick the one that matches how you want the file used on that board.
• Drive Picker, not URL pasting. Use Google’s official file picker to choose a Doc, Sheet, Slide, Form, or Drawing — no copy-pasting URLs, no permission surprises.
• drive.file scope. Easy Embed only sees the specific files you pick — it doesn’t have access to your whole Drive. That’s a meaningful security improvement over Google integrations that ask for full Drive access.

Side-by-side

	Link column	Built-in embed	Google Easy Embed
Setup time	seconds	seconds	one-time Connect to Google
File visible inline	❌	⚠️ unreliable	✅
Per-view access mode (View/Comment/Edit)	❌	❌	✅
Per-view display mode	❌	❌	✅
Survives Google auth quirks	n/a	❌	✅
Only sees files you explicitly pick	n/a	n/a	✅ (drive.file scope)
Free	✅	✅	✅
Works with Forms and Drawings	⚠️ link only	⚠️ varies	✅
Available on mobile	✅ link	⚠️ varies	✅

Which should you use?

• Link column if a row has lots of different Google files and the link is purely for reference.
• Built-in embed if you have one quick file to show, everyone is reliably signed into Google in the same browser, and you don’t need access controls.
• Google Easy Embed for any board where the Google file is the central artefact, where multiple people need to interact with it, or where you care about access/display controls.

Try Google Easy Embed

Install Google Easy Embed from the monday.com marketplace. It’s free, takes about a minute to set up, and you can swap any existing iframe view for an Easy Embed view without losing your board structure.

Related reading

• Embed Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides in monday.com
• Display modes explained
• Help: connect to Google