# Glide Data Sources: Google Sheets, Tables, Airtable and SQL

> How Glide handles data: Glide Classic sources by plan, Google Sheets sync, Big Tables, row caps and updates, and why GlideOS copies sheets, no write-back.

_Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/glide-google-sheets-and-data — The Professional's Toolkit · updated November 2026_

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Glide (glideapps.com) sells two separate products, and they treat your spreadsheet in opposite ways. **Glide Classic**, the original no-code builder, keeps a Google Sheet in two-way sync, so an edit in the app reaches the sheet and an edit in the sheet reaches the app. That sync starts on Glide Classic Maker, $49 per month billed yearly or $60 billed monthly.[1] Maker admits only personal-email app users (Gmail, .edu), so staff on a company email domain need Glide Classic Business. Airtable and Excel sync need Glide Classic Business, while SQL databases and BigQuery are Enterprise only. **GlideOS**, the AI agent product that new sign-ups are steered to, copies a sheet into its own database and never writes back. Want the sheet to stay the source of truth? Choose Classic.


**Classic Maker** — Lowest Glide Classic plan with Google Sheets sync: $49 per month billed yearly or $60 billed monthly; personal-email app users only, so company-domain staff need Glide Classic Business.



- **25,000 rows** — Spreadsheet-source rows on every Glide Classic plan
- **2¢ per update** — Glide Classic overage once unlimited updates is on
- **No write-back** — GlideOS copies a Google Sheet into its own database


## Decide which Glide holds your data first

Glide says the two products have separate accounts and plans, cannot share data, and come with no tool to migrate a Classic app into GlideOS; our [Glide review](/articles/glide-review) covers that split in full. In practice, a team running a Classic app on a synced sheet cannot carry that connection across. It would upload the sheet again into a fresh GlideOS project and work from the copy. The meters differ too. Glide Classic counts data changes and syncs in updates, while GlideOS spends credits on AI building, workflow steps and integration calls, and the two units never convert.

## Glide Classic sources, plan by plan

Glide Classic's Compare features table sets data access by plan, and the docs repeat the same gates.[2] Native Glide Tables and Big Tables are on every plan, Free included. Free and Explorer can import a Google Sheet, a CSV or an Excel file, but an import is a one-time copy with no link back to the original. Live Google Sheets sync begins on Maker. Business adds Airtable sync and Excel sync through OneDrive or SharePoint. Enterprise adds PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Cloud SQL, BigQuery and connectors such as HubSpot. Free cannot publish apps at all, and since December 2024 it no longer syncs external sources.

| Classic plan | Data sources it adds | High-scale (Big Tables) rows | Updates a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Glide Tables, Big Tables, Sheets, CSV and Excel import | 25,000 | none needed |
| Explorer | Same as Free | 25,000 | 250 |
| Maker | Google Sheets sync | 50,000 | 500 |
| Business | Airtable sync, Excel sync | 100,000 | 5,000 |
| Enterprise | SQL databases, BigQuery, 100+ sources | custom, up to 10 million | custom |

The second cap hides well. Every Glide Classic plan allows 25,000 spreadsheet-source rows, and that figure does not grow on Business or Enterprise. Glide's docs call 25,000 rows the practical upper limit of performance for its apps. At the cap, syncing with external spreadsheets becomes unreliable, new tables show only 10 rows and app users see a warning. Going further means a Big Table: you recreate the columns in the new table and repoint your components, and Glide support has to migrate an existing Glide Table for you. Plan for it early.

## Keeping Google Sheets, Excel and Airtable in step

### Google Sheets on Maker and up

A Glide Classic app reads one Google spreadsheet, and each tab becomes a table. IMPORTRANGE can pull data in from other sheets, though it refreshes in the background only on a paid plan with background refresh. Rows are matched by position, which shifts whenever rows are added or deleted, so **add a Row ID column** before launch; without one, updates can fail. The Google account linked to Glide needs editor access, and Workspace admins may have to allowlist Glide. Macros, charts and VLOOKUP formulas do not carry over. Lookups get rebuilt as Relations inside Glide.

### Excel and Airtable on Business

Excel sync works with workbooks stored in OneDrive or SharePoint. Glide Classic adds a Row ID column to each sheet that must not be deleted, and an organization-managed OneDrive may need an IT admin to approve Glide's permissions, including full access to user files. Airtable cannot send change notifications, so Glide polls it about every three minutes while the app is in use and about hourly once the app has sat idle for over an hour. Airtable view filters do not transfer, so filtered-out records still appear in the app data.

Two Airtable rules catch teams late. Attachments are copied into Glide Classic storage and count against the team's file quota, and going over it can make apps inaccessible until an upgrade. The team member who connected the base must stay on the team, because only that account can re-authenticate. Glide Classic has also accepted no new Airtable API keys since January 2024, so a team without a stored key cannot add one. Columns you create in Glide on an Airtable table stay in Glide as user-specific columns. Sync depends on use as well: an external source generally syncs only while someone has the app open or is editing it.


> 💡 **Add a Row ID column first:** Glide Classic matches Google Sheets rows by position, which shifts when rows are added or deleted. A Row ID column keeps updates from failing.


## Updates: the meter behind every Classic sync

Updates are Glide Classic's second meter after users. The pricing FAQ ties them to changing data and syncing it from external sources, and integrations and the Glide API spend them as well. As a rule, one changed row costs one update. Changes inside native Glide Tables and Big Tables cost nothing, with three exceptions: edits through the Glide API, data changes made by a server-side workflow on a schedule or trigger, and Enterprise teams, whose custom terms count native tables too.[3] Read-only queries against SQL or BigQuery spend no updates.

The sync setting matters more than most teams expect. In Normal mode, Glide Classic syncs a sheet only when Google Drive or OneDrive reports a change, or after Glide itself writes. Extra sync mode refreshes every few minutes while the app is active, and each of those syncs counts as updates even when nothing changed. Building spends a little too. When you adjust computed columns in the Data Editor, the visible rows that recalculate count, and scrolling to reveal more rows adds more.

Glide Classic Explorer includes 250 updates a month, Glide Classic Maker 500 and Glide Classic Business 5,000. At the limit, external spreadsheet syncs pause, workflows stop and Glide AI returns no response. A team can switch on unlimited updates instead, billed at 2¢ ($0.02) per update beyond the plan's allowance. By our arithmetic, 1,000 extra updates cost $20. Overage switches, upgrades and the Business trial are covered in our [Glide pricing guide](/articles/glide-pricing). Keep busy data native.


> ⚠ **Extra sync mode spends updates:** In Glide Classic, Extra sync mode refreshes every few minutes while the app is active, and each sync counts as updates even when no data changed.


## Big Tables, SQL and BigQuery for larger data

Big Tables are Glide Classic's native high-scale database, available on every plan at the row figures in the table above, and Glide's help center calls them the recommended source for most Classic apps. Adding, editing, deleting and syncing their rows spends no updates. You can import .xlsx, .csv or .ods files into an existing Big Table, which appends rows without touching old ones, and an export arrives by email as a CSV. The Glide API v2, a public beta on Glide Classic Business and Enterprise, works with Big Tables only, and our [API and integrations guide](/articles/glide-api-and-integrations) covers it.

Scale has a price in features. On a Big Table, computed columns such as Relation, Rollup, Query and AI columns cannot filter or sort, rollups over unsupported computed columns read only the first 100 rows, and a Query column returns at most 1,000 rows by default. A Big Table cannot serve as the User Profiles table or as the source of the Generate CSV action. Apps built on Big Tables, SQL or BigQuery also cannot be transferred to another team. Test these limits before migrating.

SQL sources stay outside Glide. On Glide Classic Enterprise, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server and Cloud SQL connect read and write, and Glide queries them on demand rather than mirroring the data. Read-write tables need a primary key that is not a date or time field, schema changes need a manual refresh in the Data Editor, and an app has to start on Glide Tables before you add the SQL source. BigQuery is read-only, so edits never reach the warehouse. Its tables need a unique first column named id, row owners are not supported, and chart, kanban and calendar components load at most 5,000 rows.

## GlideOS: the spreadsheet becomes a starting copy

GlideOS builds its tables from a connected Google Sheet, an uploaded Excel, CSV or ODS file, or tables the agent drafts from a description. Glide's SheetSense system scans an upload for formulas, comments, macros, pivot tables, charts and conditional formatting. A full scan is expensive, so it begins with a lighter pass. Since August 2026, workbooks under 100 MB can be read, searched and imported. GlideOS also flags contradictions or missing data in a sheet and asks, rather than guessing silently.

The key rule runs one way. GlideOS copies the sheet into a database table, later changes stay in GlideOS, and nothing writes back to Google Sheets.[4] Importing into an existing table appends rows and leaves the old ones alone. Each project holds one database, shared by every app in that project. If your finance team still works in the sheet every day, this is the deciding fact. The copy and the sheet will drift apart. Spreadsheet imports and AI work also spend GlideOS credits, and when the monthly credits run out new AI requests stop until they reset or you buy more.

Getting data out takes two routes. Any GlideOS table exports to a CSV file. Postgres-compatible connection strings, read-only or read/write and shown only once, come with GlideOS Pro, which costs $125 per month for 5 team members and 500 credits, billed monthly (annual plans are not offered yet). GlideOS publishes no row or storage limit; Glide says it runs on Neon databases, and its Enterprise page, updated October 2026, shows a project with millions of rows. Since October 2026, data triggers can start a workflow when a row is added, updated or deleted, though tools writing straight to the database do not fire them.


> 💡 **Keep busy data in Big Tables:** In Glide Classic, changes users make in Glide Tables and Big Tables spend no updates on Explorer, Maker and Business (Enterprise terms count them), unlike syncs from Google Sheets, Excel or Airtable.



## FAQ

**Where does Glide store the data in my tables?**

Glide's help center says data is hosted in the United States on Google Cloud, with no EU servers and no self-hosting option, and it does not split this by product. Glide notes that users far from the US can see added latency.

**Can I keep patient or card data in a Glide table?**

No. The rules for both GlideOS and Glide Classic prohibit HIPAA-protected health information in apps, and both bar card and bank account numbers.

**Does Glide back up my tables?**

GlideOS keeps data backups for 24 hours on GlideOS Pro and 30 days on GlideOS Enterprise. In Glide Classic, Data Backups for Glide Tables and Big Tables is a paid add-on to Glide Classic Enterprise, with frequency and retention set by what you buy.

**What does a Glide Classic CSV export leave out?**

A CSV export of a Glide Table drops columns with no data in any row, computed columns export as plain text, and Relation and Query columns cannot be exported. Data kept in Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable or SQL stays in that source.


## The bottom line

Glide's data story splits by product. Pick Glide Classic when the spreadsheet must stay live: Google Sheets sync from Maker (personal-email app users only; company-domain staff need Glide Classic Business), Airtable and Excel sync from Business, SQL and BigQuery on Enterprise, with updates metering every external change and 25,000 spreadsheet-source rows on every plan. Pick GlideOS when the sheet is a starting point rather than a permanent home: it copies the data, keeps every later change in its own project database and exports tables as CSV. Glide has no tool to move a Classic app into GlideOS, so a later switch means rebuilding from a fresh upload of the sheet; decide before you build.



## Sources

[1] Glide Classic: Pricing & Plans — https://www.glideapps.com/classic/pricing (2026-11)
[2] Glide docs: Introduction to Data Sources — https://www.glideapps.com/docs/essentials/data-sources (2026-11)
[3] Glide docs: Updates — https://www.glideapps.com/docs/reference/account/updates (2026-11)
[4] Glide docs: Data — https://www.glideapps.com/docs/os/data (2026-11)
[5] Glide pricing page (GlideOS) — https://www.glideapps.com/pricing
[6] Glide Terms of Service — https://www.glideapps.com/legal/glide-os/terms