✨Autocompletion in Google Apps Script

24th of April 2025

Illustrating title with screenshot showing autocompletion drop down list and method detail

One of the most underrated (but powerful) features of Google Apps Script is its autocompletion system. Once you get used to it, you’ll barely need to open the official documentation ever again!

Apps Script is built on top of JavaScript, but its real strength comes from how it exposes Google services through method chaining. Whenever you type a dot (.) after an object—like SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().—you instantly see a list of methods available to you. This isn’t just convenient; it’s essential for writing code quickly and confidently.

⚡ Tip: Press Ctrl + Space or Ctrl + Esc for instant method suggestions!

You’ll find that almost every Google service, DriveApp, SpreadsheetApp, GmailApp, and so on has this smart autocomplete built in. It shows you all available methods, what parameters they need, and even their return types.

🧠 Boosting Autocompletion with JSDoc

But here’s something even cooler: you can get autocomplete inside your own functions, even when you pass Google service instances as arguments. All you need is a touch of JSDoc!

showing jsdoc param with spreadsheetApp.sheet

showing auto completion on sheet object, even though sheet is a parameter in this function

With this @param comment, Apps Script understands the type of sheet, and now when you type sheet. inside the function, autocompletion kicks in just like magic. No more second-guessing method names or switching tabs to check the docs.

You can use this trick for all kinds of Google Apps Script types, Docs, Forms, Calendar, Drive....

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