This situation is obviously a casualty of desktop computer security abstractions (e.g. Apple’s sandboxing) leaking into web/oauth to the point of utter user confusion. The picker/chooser idea is interesting because it’s also mimicking how desktop sandboxing gives apps the ability to read any one file at the users discretion.

My electron app supports importing XLS/CSV (bound by limitations of sandboxing) and have had users request Google Sheets support. A few weeks ago I built up a Sheets POC and I too was surprised with the v4 drive requirements. I agree with op, it seems silly to request full read permission when all I need is a list of metadata to integrate with the Sheets API. I’m trying to think ... does any desktop have a file API that has the ability to return only files of a certain kind (perhaps that app’s registered extension) while presenting the user with a dialog that makes sense for that context? It’s an interesting idea.