desktop-cli | Declutter your Desktop

The goal of the steps below is to create a custom oath client ID which will be used only for my instance of rclone. rclone already is registered as an app with google API with it's own set of client ID credentials, but the recommended way is create another set for the sake of performance.

In the google api developers console I create a new project called my-rclone-project.

Once the project is created I proceed to the OAuth consent screen where I choose the type External. As I proceed to the OAuth consent screen there is a setting paragraps called Scopes for Google APIs. Here I leave the default scopes (email, profile, openid) explicitly not selecting the scopes which would allow access to google drive. I call the application my-rclone-app and use the defaults.

After that I go to the Credentials screen and do CREARTE CREDENTIALS -> OAuth client ID. I choose the Desktop app and name the client my-rclone-desktop-client. Finishing this results in the reation of the Client ID and Client secret. Given the scope selected in the OAuth consent screen i would expect that these credentials won't allow the app to ask permision for anything besides what was defined in the scope. So it shouln't be able to ask for permission to access the google drive APIs.

I than proceed to configure the rclone from my pc rclone config. I enter the oauth credentials I created in the step above. During the config process I'm asked to define the scope to use when accessing google drive as if the OAuth consent screen isn't relevant at all. As the config nears it's end, I'm redirected to the browser where the app is requesting to See and download all your Google Drive files. I accept that end end the config with defaults selected.

As I try listing with ./rclone lsd google-drive: I get an error about the drive API not being enabled with a link in the error on how to enable it. Going on that link and enabling it results in ./rclone lsd google-drive: listing the content of my drive.

What is the purpose of having to define an OAuth consent screen and the API scope as a part of it when the app can request an arbitrary scope completly bypassing the scope selected in the OAuth consent screen setup?

_{Reference: Create a client ID in google API}