How to Add a Google Doc in a Specific Folder with Your Stream Deck

I’ve greatly improved my process for creating social media content in a centralized place.

The basic workflow is this:

1. Create a Google Doc in a folder called “Social Posts”
2. Kick off a Make automation that watches that folder, and adds a new entry to my “Social Media content” base in Airtable. A schedule date is also determined.

Then my VA goes in and reviews the documents, creating images as needed, and posting them on the scheduled dates.

Building the Google Doc URL

To make this even easier, I wanted to create a Stream Deck button to open a new document in that Google Drive folder¹. Turns out, you can create a new file in a specific folder via a URL.

Here’s the URL Format: https://docs.google.com/document/create?usp=drive_web&folder=[FOLDER-ID].

And here’s where you get the FOLDER-ID:

Creating the Stream Deck Button

With that in hand, I have my URL. And I can easily launch this with my Stream Deck thanks to the “Website” action:

Now, whenever inspiration strikes, I push that button and start writing.

But I know what you’re thinking. “What about when you’re not at your Stream Deck?”

Sadly, because the Google Docs team apparently hates iOS, there is no native shortcut for Docs, and when you open that URL on mobile, it throws an error.

Instead what I do is dictate a new document using Drafts. Then Drafts has an action to save to Google Drive. It’s not perfect, but it works for now.

1. The subtext here being I have this sort of automation for all things I want to quickly capture — ideas, notes, journal thoughts. ?