← All articles

How to Download Stock Data from Google Finance

Can you download stock data from Google Finance?

Google Finance shows stock quotes, charts, and basic financials — but it does not offer a direct CSV or Excel download. Unlike Yahoo Finance, there is no "Download" button on any Google Finance page. If you want the data in a spreadsheet, you need a workaround.

This guide covers every method available to get stock data out of Google Finance, from built-in Google Sheets functions to browser extensions that export data from financial sites.

Method 1: GOOGLEFINANCE() function in Google Sheets

Google Sheets has a built-in GOOGLEFINANCE() function that pulls live and historical stock data directly into your spreadsheet.

Basic syntax

=GOOGLEFINANCE("AAPL", "price")
=GOOGLEFINANCE("MSFT", "close", "2024-01-01", "2024-12-31", "DAILY")

Available attributes

  • price — real-time or delayed quote
  • open, high, low, close, volume — historical OHLCV data
  • marketcap — current market capitalization
  • pe — price-to-earnings ratio
  • eps — earnings per share

Limitations

  • Historical data is limited — typically the last 1-5 years depending on the attribute
  • No financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, cash flow)
  • No dividend history or earnings calendar
  • Data can be delayed up to 20 minutes
  • Rate limits on how many GOOGLEFINANCE() calls a single sheet can make
  • Attributes sometimes stop working without notice — the function is undocumented

Method 2: Copy and paste from Google Finance

You can manually select data from Google Finance pages and paste it into a spreadsheet. This works for small amounts of data — a few data points for one or two stocks.

Limitations

  • Extremely slow for more than a handful of stocks
  • Formatting breaks on paste — numbers may import as text
  • No historical price tables to copy (Google Finance only shows charts)
  • Error-prone — easy to miss a column or misalign rows

Method 3: Google Finance API (deprecated)

Google once offered a Finance API, but it was shut down in 2012. There is no official Google Finance API available today. Any third-party library claiming to access it is either scraping the website (fragile and against ToS) or using a different data source entirely.

If you need a programmatic approach, consider the Yahoo Finance API alternatives instead.

Method 4: Use Yahoo Finance with a browser extension

Google Finance is great for quick lookups, but when you need downloadable data, Yahoo Finance offers far more: full price history for stocks, ETFs and indices, back to the first trading day.

FinGrab is a Chrome extension that adds one-click CSV export to Yahoo Finance. Instead of fighting with Google Finance's limitations, you switch to Yahoo Finance and export the price history you need.

What FinGrab exports from Yahoo Finance

  • Historical prices — full OHLCV data for any date range
  • Adjusted close — prices adjusted for splits and dividends
  • Daily, weekly or monthly — one row per period

How it works

  1. Install FinGrab from the Chrome Web Store
  2. Open any stock on finance.yahoo.com
  3. Click the FinGrab icon in Chrome's side panel
  4. Select data type and date range
  5. Click export — CSV downloads instantly

Comparison: Google Finance vs. Yahoo Finance for data export

FeatureGoogle FinanceYahoo Finance + FinGrab
Direct CSV downloadNoYes
Historical OHLCVVia Sheets function onlyFull history, one click
Adjusted closeNot availableIncluded
Coding requiredSheets formulasNo

When to use each approach

Use GOOGLEFINANCE() when

  • You need live prices updating in a Google Sheet
  • You only need basic price data for a few stocks
  • You are already working in Google Sheets and want inline data

Use Yahoo Finance + FinGrab when

  • You want clean CSV files for analysis in Excel, R, or Python
  • You need adjusted prices for return calculations
  • You want historical stock price data going back further than Google Finance supports

Get started

Google Finance is useful for quick quotes, but it was never built for data export. If you need downloadable price history, the fastest path is Yahoo Finance with FinGrab. Install it and export your first dataset in under two minutes.

Related Articles