[1135] Beginner-friendly guide for reading Smartsheet tables (sheets) in Python using your API key

Here’s a complete, beginner-friendly guide for reading Smartsheet tables (sheets) in Python using your API key.

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🧭 Step 1. Get Your Smartsheet API Key
1. Log in to https://app.smartsheet.com
2. Click your profile icon (top-right corner) → Personal Settings → API Access
3. Click Generate new access token
4. Copy your token — looks like:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

⚠️ Keep it secret — it gives full access to your Smartsheet account.

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⚙️ Step 2. Install the Smartsheet Python SDK

Open your terminal (or VS Code terminal) and install:

pip install smartsheet-python-sdk

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🧩 Step 3. Read a Sheet in Python

Here’s the simplest working example 👇

import smartsheet

Initialize the Smartsheet client with your API key

ACCESS_TOKEN = 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'
smartsheet_client = smartsheet.Smartsheet(ACCESS_TOKEN)

(Optional) turn off logging

smartsheet_client.errors_as_exceptions(True)

Replace with your sheet ID (found in the Smartsheet URL)

SHEET_ID = 1234567890123456

Get the sheet

sheet = smartsheet_client.Sheets.get_sheet(SHEET_ID)

Print sheet name

print(f"Sheet name: {sheet.name}\n")

Loop through all rows and print values

for row in sheet.rows:
values = [cell.value for cell in row.cells]
print(values)

✅ This will print all the rows of your Smartsheet — effectively reading it like a table.

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📊 Step 4. (Optional) Convert to pandas DataFrame

If you want to analyze data with pandas:

pip install pandas

Then add:

import pandas as pd

data = []
for row in sheet.rows:
row_data = [cell.value for cell in row.cells]
data.append(row_data)

Use column titles as headers

headers = [col.title for col in sheet.columns]
df = pd.DataFrame(data, columns=headers)

print(df.head())

Now you have your Smartsheet as a pandas DataFrame 🎯

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🧠 Step 5. Find Your Sheet ID

Open your Smartsheet in a browser.
Look at the URL — for example:

https://app.smartsheet.com/sheets/8435620192387460

The number at the end (8435620192387460) is your SHEET_ID.

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🧰 Optional: Using requests Instead of SDK

If you don’t want to install the SDK, you can also use plain requests:

import requests

api_key = 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'
sheet_id = '1234567890123456'
url = f'https://api.smartsheet.com/2.0/sheets/{sheet_id}'

headers = {
'Authorization': f'Bearer {api_key}',
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
data = response.json()

for row in data['rows']:
print([cell.get('value') for cell in row['cells']])

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✅ Summary

Task Method Tool
List all sheets smartsheet_client.Sheets.list_sheets() SDK
Read one sheet smartsheet_client.Sheets.get_sheet(SHEET_ID) SDK
Raw HTTP call GET https://api.smartsheet.com/2.0/sheets/{sheetId} requests