[BUG] claude.ai Google Drive connector — create_file fails "User cannot add children to the specified folder" with explicit parentId, second reporter, fresh-chat reproduction, requesting re-triage (related: #57211 closed as invalid)

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Re-triage request
Issue #57211 (opened May 8, 2026 by @daisyadmin) was labeled invalid "Issue doesn't seem to be related to Claude Code." I understand the label rationale (it's the claude.ai / Cowork Google Drive MCP connector, not the Claude Code CLI), but the bug is real, is still reproducing, and is now confirmed by a other accounts on different Anthropic plans. Closing as invalid left it without an owning team.

Asking for the following:

Re-open #57211 and route it to the associated teams for Code / Cowork / claude.ai connector

Problem Description:
The Code & Cowork Google Drive connector's create_file tool returns the exact error string:

User cannot add children to the specified folder.

…when called with any explicit parentId, including folders the authenticated Google user owns or has editor access to in Drive directly. Reproduces despite updates, disconnection, reauth, program restart etc. /bug

This reproduces:

In existing Cowork chat sessions
In a brand new Cowork chat with no prior context
On multiple different parent folders, including a folder where writes had been succeeding for the same user account in a different concurrent session minutes earlier
On consecutive days (2026-05-10 and 2026-05-11)

Users are able to create files, folders and move the same manually and with other AIs (e.g perplexity) - ruling out a Google problem/permissions issue

This also rules out: per-session state corruption, single-folder permission drift, and stale browser/app state.

What Should Happen?
create_file should succeed for parent folders the authenticated Google identity has editor/contributor/owner permission on. Same behavior as pre-May 7, 2026 (per #57211).

Reproduction from current user in fresh Cowork chat, 2026-05-05 and 2026-05-11

Test 1 — parent folder A

parentId: (redacted)
title: _session-test_fresh-chat_kbfolder.txt
contentMimeType: text/plain
disableConversionToGoogleType: true
Result on 2026-05-10: FAIL — User cannot add children to the specified folder.
Result on 2026-05-11 re-run: FAIL — User cannot add children to the specified folder.

Test 2 — parent folder B (a folder where writes were succeeding for this same user account in a parallel Cowork session earlier the same day)

parentId: (redacted)
title: _session-test_fresh-chat_layer1.txt
contentMimeType: text/plain
disableConversionToGoogleType: true
Result on 2026-05-10: FAIL — User cannot add children to the specified folder.
Result on 2026-05-11 re-run: FAIL — User cannot add children to the specified folder.

User account has owner/editor permissions on both folders verified directly in Drive UI.
Why this is not the same as #57211 being "user error"

Independent Anthropic accounts on different plans reporting the same exact error string against different parent folders.
Fresh-chat reproduction after multiple troubleshooting rules out per-session token state.
The Test 2 folder is one where the same user account had successful writes from another active Cowork session within the same calendar day. The connector's auth context is producing inconsistent results for the same Google identity against the same Drive resource — that points to a connector-side regression, not a Drive ACL problem.

What's already been ruled out
OAuth revoke at myaccount.google.com/permissions + reconnect — no fix (per #57211)
App update / browser cache clear — no fix (per #57211)
Folder-level Drive permissions — verified editor/owner directly in Drive UI on both test folders
Per-session corruption — fresh chat reproduces it
Specific folder bad state — second folder that was working in a parallel session also fails here
Suggested triage angles for the connector team:
OAuth scope drift. Did the Drive connector's requested scope change on or after May 7, 2026 — e.g., dropped to drive.file (only files the app created) instead of drive (full access)? drive.file would explain why writes to root succeed (app-created) but writes to user-specified parentIds fail (not app-created).

Shared-drive vs. My Drive handling. Confirm whether supportsAllDrives / includeItemsFromAllDrives is being passed on the files.create call. A regression that dropped this flag would manifest as exactly this error on shared-drive parent IDs.
Token-to-identity binding. When the same authenticated user account gets different results from the same Drive resource across two concurrent Cowork sessions, the token cache may be binding to the wrong Google identity for some session paths.
Coincidence with May 7 platform incident. Per #57211, this regression began during/after the May 7 outage (15+ hours per StatusGator). Worth confirming whether a connector-side config or scope change shipped as part of the recovery.

Environment
Product: Cowork /Code (desktop) — also reported on claude.ai web in #57211
Connector: Google Drive (Cpde/Cowork → Connectors)
Plan: Max (this report) / Pro (#57211)

OS: macOS

Related issues
#57211 — original report, closed/labeled invalid (re-triage requested)
#51040 — Google Drive/Gmail/Calendar MCP integrations lack write operations (feature request framing; different issue)
#30457 — Google Drive connector shows connected but tools not exposed in Cowork (Cowork-specific, different issue)

Ask
Please re-open #57211 or label this issue for the Cowork/ Code / claude.ai Drive connector team. If neither this repo nor that team owns the claude.ai web connector, point me at the right intake and I'll re-file. This is blocking real work for a larger team - Drive writes are a core part of my Cowork workflow at our company

What Should Happen?

files should be created in shared drive via cowork/code without error. Was successful prior to 05/05/26 and producing consistient errors as described over the past 7 days.

Error Messages/Logs

The Code & Cowork Google Drive connector's create_file tool returns the exact error string:

User cannot add children to the specified folder.

…when called with any explicit parentId, including folders the authenticated Google user owns or has editor access to in Drive directly. Reproduces despite updates, disconnection, reauth, program restart etc.

This reproduces:

In existing Cowork chat sessions
In a brand new Cowork chat with no prior context
On multiple different parent folders, including a folder where writes had been succeeding for the same user account in a different concurrent session minutes earlier
On consecutive days (2026-05-10 and 2026-05-11)

Users are able to create files, folders and move the same manually and with other AIs (e.g perplexity) - ruling out a Google problem/permissions issue

This also rules out: per-session state corruption, single-folder permission drift, and stale browser/app state.

Steps to Reproduce

Steps to Reproduce
Open Cowork /Code (or claude.ai web) with the Google Drive connector connected.
In a fresh chat (no prior context), ask Claude to create a file in a specific folder you own in My Drive, supplying the folder's Drive ID as parentId.
Observe error: User cannot add children to the specified folder.
Ask Claude to create a file with no parentId succeeds, file lands in Drive root.
Repeat step 2 with a brand new folder you created seconds ago same error.

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.128

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_