Moodle and the quirky integration with Google Drive....

I set up the Google Drive repository in my moodle.

These were my loosely covered steps

1. Activated the Google Drive file repository in the moodle
2. Following the link in the moodle docs, Registering the moodle with Google - created a Project 
3. Copied the client ID and the secret key provided by Google into Moodle
4. Copied the callback URI from Moodle into the Google project
5. Activated - Enabled the Drive API

I tested and worked through a couple issues

1) forgetting to actually activate the Drive API and
2) not having used the correct path for the callback URI
3) confusion about what GD was displaying - I had a different google email logged in on one context.

to the point where I could get Google login to pop up if necessary or have Drive automatically show up, when I was logged in. 

I also played around with the Google Drive space, adding folders and different files from a couple places - so I could test them in the moodle.

I downloaded files from Drive into three places in the moodle, specifically.

1 - my profile
2 - my private files space, my home page
3 - in a course assignment

Each is now working as expected.  Meaning, I can access Google Drive from any of those *contexts in moodle, and download a file from Drive to Moodle.

Sometimes, I may see this error, which can be corrected by logging out of moodle, then back in.  This creates a new unexpired token.

On a conceptual level, my takeaways are that Google Drive is one of many file repositories out there, and has integration capability in Moodle.  Moodle wants to play well with others.  Moodle wants to allow you to access the places where you may have put things.   Files that live in other repositories need to be accessible in the moodle.  If a student is taking a course and completing assignments, and they have a good habit of saving their work in the Drive or some other repository, they need to be able to access that repository from moodle so they can assign a file to an assignment. 

Moodle is not a file repository, I mean it is, but that is not what it really is.  Google Drive, or Dropbox are file repositories - while Moodle is a LMS that may need access to places where learners may have put things.