Make AJAX Request to Google Script Web App with jQuery

You have published a Google Apps Script as a public web app that returns data as JSON but when you try to make an AJAX call to this web app using jQuery, you get the “Cross Origin” error.

Your AJAX request is blocked by the browser because of the “same origin policy” that disallows reading the remote resource at script.google.com. An easy workaround to this problem is JSONP or JSON with a prefix. With JSONP, the client’s browser won’t enforce the same origin policy but for that to work, you would need to modify your Google Script web app to return results in JSONP format.

Here’s an example web app that return JSONP results.

function doGet(e) {
  var result = '';

  try {
    result = 'Hello ' + e.parameter.name;
  } catch (f) {
    result = 'Error: ' + f.toString();
  }

  result = JSON.stringify({
    result: result,
  });

  return ContentService.createTextOutput(e.parameter.callback + '(' + result + ')').setMimeType(
    ContentService.MimeType.JAVASCRIPT
  );
}

The MimeType of the output is set as JAVASCRIPT and that will return as JSONP. You can now call this web app from your client side JavaScript as shown here.

<script>

  // Make an AJAX call to Google Script
  function callGoogleScript() {

    var url = "https://script.google.com/macros/s/123/exec?callback=ctrlq&name=";
    var name = "Amit Agarwal"

    var request = jQuery.ajax({
      crossDomain: true,
      url: url + encodeURIComponent(name),
      method: "GET",
      dataType: "jsonp"
    });

  }

  // print the returned data
  function ctrlq(e) {
    console.log(e.result)
  }
</script>

Amit Agarwal is a web geek, solo entrepreneur and loves making things on the Internet. Google recently awarded him the Google Developer Expert and Google Cloud Champion title for his work on Google Workspace and Google Apps Script.

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