How to Share a Google Sheets Template Link

Sharing a Google Sheet as a template instead of a live document protects your original work and gives your colleagues or customers a clean copy to start with. Creating this special link isn't obvious, but it only requires a simple modification to the spreadsheet's URL. This article will walk you through exactly how to create a Google Sheets template link, along with a few other handy URL tricks for sharing your work.

Why Share a Template Link Instead of a Regular Link?

You've likely run into problems with standard sharing methods a dozen times. You spend hours creating the perfect project plan, budget tracker, or report template. You click the green "Share" button, grab the link, and send it to your team. Then, chaos ensues.

Let's look at the standard sharing options and why they often fall short:

• "Editor" Access: This is the most dangerous option for a template. When you grant editor access, you are sharing your one and only master document. Anyone with the link can accidentally delete formulas, overwrite important data, or completely change the layout. Suddenly, your pristine template is a mess, and you have to search through the version history to fix it.
• "Viewer" or "Commenter" Access: This is much safer, as it prevents others from directly editing your original file. However, it shifts the work onto your users. To use your template, they have to navigate the menus and remember to click File → Make a copy. It’s an extra step that isn't always intuitive, leading to support requests or people simply giving up.

The "template" link solves both of these problems beautifully. It's the best of both worlds: it completely protects your original document while providing a seamless, one-click experience for the user. When someone clicks a template link, they are immediately prompted to create their own fresh copy, which is automatically saved to their own Google Drive.

How to Create a Google Sheets Template Link: Step-by-Step

The magic isn't in a hidden menu or setting, it's baked right into the URL of the Google Sheet. By making a simple change to the web address, you can transform it into a powerful template delivery tool.

Follow these simple steps:

Step 1: Get Your Google Sheet Ready

Open the Google Sheet you want to use as your template. Make sure it's finalized, clean, and contains all the instructions, formulas, and formatting you want your users to have in their copy.

Step 2: Open Sharing Settings

Look for the green "Share" button in the top-right corner of the screen and click it.

Step 3: Change "General access" Permissions

In the sharing pop-up window, you'll see a section called "General access." By default, it's often set to "Restricted," meaning only specific people you add can open it. You need to change this setting.

Click the dropdown menu and select "Anyone with the link." This is essential for the template link to work for anyone you send it to, even if they're outside your organization.

To the right of this, ensure the permission level is set to "Viewer." While both "Viewer" and "Editor" will work for creating a template link, setting it to "Viewer" provides an extra layer of protection. It ensures that no one can make accidental edits to your master document, even if they tinker with the URL to remove the template command.

Step 4: Copy the Standard Share Link

With the permissions correctly set, click the "Copy link" button and then "Done."

Step 5: Paste and Modify the URL

Now, paste that link into a text editor, an email draft, or even your browser's address bar - anywhere you can see the full URL and edit it.

It will look something like this (your unique ID will be a different string of characters):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aBcDeFgHiJkLmNoPqRsTuVwXyZ/edit?usp=sharing

The part you need to change is at the very end. Look for the word edit followed by a question mark and other text. In our example, that's /edit?usp=sharing.

Carefully delete that entire section, from the "e" in "edit" all the way to the end.

In its place, type template/preview.

So, your new URL will look like this:

Original link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aBcDeFgHiJkLmNoPqRsTuVwXyZ/edit?usp=sharing

New Template link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aBcDeFgHiJkLmNoPqRsTuVwXyZ/template/preview

That's it! This new, modified URL is your shareable template link. Anyone who clicks it will be directed to a preview page where they can generate their own copy.

What Does the User See?

When someone clicks your /template/preview link, they don't land directly in the spreadsheet. Instead, they see a simple landing page that shows them a preview of the document with your file name and a big blue "Use template" button. Once they click that button, Google Sheets automatically creates a brand new copy of your spreadsheet in their personal Google Drive. The original file in your Drive remains completely untouched and secure.

This process is clean, professional, and dead-simple for the end-user.

3 More Powerful Google Sheets URL Tricks

Now that you know how to manipulate the Google Sheets URL for templates, you can use similar tricks to make Sheets do other helpful things. These are particularly useful for automating tasks or creating simple, shareable actions for your team.

1. Force a "Make a Copy" Prompt

This trick is very similar to the template creator but skips the preview page. It’s perfect when you want the absolute fastest user experience for creating a copy.

• URL piece to replace: /edit?usp=sharing
• Replace with: /copy

When someone clicks a link ending in /copy, they don't see a preview. Instead, their browser immediately displays a prompt that says "Would you like to make a copy of [Your File Name]?" It's a slightly more direct way to achieve the same goal as the template link.

2. Export Directly to PDF

Have you ever needed to quickly generate a PDF of a report, dashboard, or invoice built in Google Sheets? You can create a link that triggers an automatic PDF download, bypassing the need to navigate through File → Download → PDF.

• URL piece to replace: /edit?usp=sharing
• Replace with: /export?format=pdf

This is incredibly powerful for sharing reports or documents that shouldn't be edited. It presents your data in a clean, professional format that anyone can open.

3. Export Directly to CSV

For data nerds, this trick is a lifesaver. If you have a sheet of raw data that you or your team frequently need to export for use in another program, you can create a link that instantly downloads it as a CSV (Comma-Separated Values) file.

• URL piece to replace: /edit?usp=sharing
• Replace with: /export?format=csv&gid=0

Note: The &gid=0 on the end is an optional but useful parameter. It specifies which tab of the spreadsheet you want to export. Each tab in your Sheet has a unique ID (the GID). The very first tab is always 0. If you need to export a different tab, you can find its gid in the "big" URL in your address bar when you have that tab open.

Best Practices and Common Mistakes

To avoid common hiccups, keep these quick tips in mind when sharing your links:

• Always Test Your Link: Before sending out your new template or export link to the masses, copy it and open it in a private or incognito browser window. This ensures it will work for people who aren't on your team or logged into your organization's Google account.
• Double-Check Your Permissions: The most common error is forgetting to set "General access" to "Anyone with the link." If it's set to "Restricted," your users will hit a "You need access" page and your link won't work.
• "Hide" Your Master Template: To avoid accidentally sharing the original file, consider keeping your master templates in a separate, dedicated folder in your Google Drive. Name it something clear like "DO NOT EDIT - MASTER TEMPLATES" so you know to only share template links generated from these files.
• Use a URL Shortener: Google's URLs are long and messy. If you're sharing your template link on social media or in a presentation, run it through a free URL shortening service like Bitly or TinyURL to make it clean, memorable, and easier to manage.

Final Thoughts

Modifying a Google Sheets URL is a simple but incredibly effective way to protect your work and simplify the process for your users. By changing the end of the URL to /template/preview or /copy, you eliminate the risk of accidental edits to your master Google Sheet and provide a more professional sharing experience. For other use cases, direct-to-PDF or CSV links can automate your workflows and save you precious time.

Manually refreshing these Google Sheet templates every week is the first major reporting headache. We built Graphed to be the next logical step, connecting directly to your marketing and sales data sources (like Google Analytics, Salesforce, or Facebook Ads). You can use simple conversational language to build dashboards and reports that update automatically in real-time, eliminating the need to ever manually export data into a spreadsheet template again.