Adding rows to a Google Sheet using the R Package googlesheets - r

Question

I'm using the googlesheets package (CRAN version, but available here: https://github.com/jennybc/googlesheets) to read data from a Google Sheet in R, but would now like to add rows. Unfortunately, every time use gs_add_row for an existing sheet I get the following error:
Error in gsheets_POST(lf_post_link, XML::toString.XMLNode(new_row)) :
client error: (405) Method Not Allowed
I followed the tutorial on Github to create a sheet and add rows as follows:
library(googlesheets)
library(dplyr)
df.colnames <- c("Project Short Name","Project Start Date","Proj Stuff")
my.df <- data.frame(a = "cannot be empty", b = "cannot be empty", c = "cannot be empty")
colnames(my.df) <- df.colnames
## Create a new workbook populated by this data.frame:
mynewSheet <- gs_new("mynewsheet", input = my.df, trim = TRUE)
## Append Element
mynewSheet <- mynewSheet %>% gs_add_row(input = c("a","b","c"))
mynewKey <- mynewSheet$sheet_key
Rows are added successfully, I even get the cheery message Row successfully appended.
I now provide mynewKey to gs_key, as I would if this were a new sheet I were working with and attempt to add a new row using gs_add_row (Note: before evaluating these lines, I navigate to the Google Sheet and make it public to the web):
myExistingWorkbook <- gs_key(mynewKey, visibility = "public")
## Attempt to gs_add_row
myExistingWorkbook <- myExistingWorkbook %>% gs_add_row(input = c("a","b","c"), ws="Sheet1", verbose = TRUE)
Error in gsheets_POST(lf_post_link, XML::toString.XMLNode(new_row)) :
client error: (405) Method Not Allowed
Things that I have tried:
1) Published the Google Sheet to the web (as per https://github.com/jennybc/googlesheets/issues/126#issuecomment-118751652)
2) Enabled the sheet as editable to the public
Notes
In my actual example, I have an existing Google Sheet with many worksheets within it that I would like to add rows to. I have tried to use a minimal example here to understand my error, I can also provide a link to the specific worksheet that I would like to update as well.
I have raised an issue on the package's github page here, https://github.com/jennybc/googlesheets/issues/168

Answer 1

googlesheets::gs_add_row() and googlesheets::gs_edit_cells() make POST requests to the Sheets API. This requires that the visibility be set to "private".
Above, when you register the Sheet by key, please do so like this:
gs_key(mynewKey, visibility = "private")
If you want this to work even for Sheets you've never visited in the browser, then add lookup = FALSE as well:
gs_key(mynewKey, lookup = FALSE, visibility = "private")