Creating and managing projects

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Google Cloud projects form the basis for creating, enabling, and using all Google Cloud services including managing APIs, enabling billing, adding and removing collaborators, and managing permissions for Google Cloud resources.

This page explains how to create and manage Google Cloud projects using the Resource Manager API and the Google Cloud console.

Before you begin

Read about the project resource in the Resource hierarchy overview. For guidance on setting up your resource hierarchy, see Decide a resource hierarchy for your Google Cloud landing zone.

The following are used to identify your project:

  • Project name: A human-readable name for your project.

    The project name isn't used by any Google APIs. You can edit the project name at any time during or after project creation. Project names do not need to be unique.

  • Project ID: A globally unique identifier for your project.

    A project ID is a unique string used to differentiate your project from all others in Google Cloud. You can use the Google Cloud console to generate a project ID, or you can choose your own. You can only modify the project ID when you're creating the project.

    Project ID requirements:

    • Must be 6 to 30 characters in length.
    • Can only contain lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens.
    • Must start with a letter.
    • Cannot end with a hyphen.
    • Cannot be in use or previously used; this includes deleted projects.
    • Cannot contain restricted strings, such as google and ssl.

  • Project number: An automatically generated unique identifier for your project.

Don't include sensitive information in your project name, project ID, or other resource names. The project ID is used in the name of many other Google Cloud resources, and any reference to the project or related resources exposes the project ID and resource name.

Creating a project

To create a project, you must have the resourcemanager.projects.create permission. This permission is included in roles like the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator). The Project Creator role is granted by default to the entire domain of a new organization and to free trial users. For information on how to grant individuals the role and limit organization- wide access, see the Managing Default Organization Roles page.

If you do not specify the parent resource, a parent resource is selected automatically if applicable based on the user account's domain.

You can create a new project using the Google Cloud console, the Google Cloud CLI, or the projects.create() method.

Console

To create a new project, do the following:

  1. Go to the Manage resources page in the Google Cloud console.

    Go to the Manage Resources page
    The remaining steps will appear automatically in the Google Cloud console.
  2. On the Select organization drop-down list at the top of the page, select the organization resource in which you want to create a project. If you are a free trial user, skip this step, as this list does not appear.
  3. Click Create Project.
  4. In the New Project window that appears, enter a project name and select a billing account as applicable. A project name can contain only letters, numbers, single quotes, hyphens, spaces, or exclamation points, and must be between 4 and 30 characters.
  5. Enter the parent organization or folder resource in the Location box. That resource will be the hierarchical parent of the new project. If No organization is an option, you can select it to create your new project as the top level of its own resource hierarchy.
  6. When you're finished entering new project details, click Create.

gcloud

To create a new project, use the gcloud projects create command:

gcloud projects create PROJECT_ID

Where PROJECT_ID is the ID for the project you want to create. A project ID must start with a lowercase letter, and can contain only ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens, and must be between 6 and 30 characters.

To create a project with an organization or a folder as parent, use the --organization or --folder flags. As a resource can only have one parent, only one of these flags can be used:

gcloud projects create PROJECT_ID --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID

gcloud projects create PROJECT_ID --folder=FOLDER_ID

API

You can't use certain words in the project ID when you create a new project with the projects.create() method. Some examples include ssl and google. When you use a restricted word, the request returns with an INVALID_ARGUMENT error.

The below request only creates a project, and does not associate it automatically with a billing account. Use the projects.updateBillingInfo method to set or update the billing account associated with a project.

Create Project Request:

POST https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/v3/projects/
Authorization: *************
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "projectId": "our-project-123",
    "name": "my project",
    "labels": {
      "mylabel": "prod"
    }
}

Create Project Response:

{
    "name": "operations/pc.123456789",
}

Get Operation Request:

GET https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/v3/operations/pc.123456789
Authorization: *************
Content-Type: application/json

Get Operation Response:

{
    "name": "operations/pc.123456789",
    "done": true,
    "response": {
        "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.cloudresourcemanager.v3.Project",
        "projectNumber": "464036093014",
        "projectId": "our-project-123",
        "lifecycleState": "ACTIVE",
        "name": "my project",
        "labels": {
        "mylabel": "prod"
        },
    "createTime": "2016-01-07T21:59:43.314Z"
    }
}

Creating a project using a service account

You can use a service account to automate project creation. Like user accounts, service accounts can be granted permission to create projects within an organization. Service accounts are not allowed to create projects outside of an organization and must specify the parent resource when creating a project. Service accounts can create a new project using the gcloud CLI or the projects.create() method.

Managing project quotas

If you have fewer than 30 projects remaining in your quota, a notification displays the number of projects remaining in your quota on the New Project page. Once you have reached your project limit, to create more projects you must request a project limit increase. Alternatively, you can schedule some projects to be deleted after 30 days on the Manage Resources Page. Projects that users have soft deleted count against your quota. These projects fully delete after 30 days.

To request additional capacity for projects in your quota, use the Request Project Quota Increase form. More information about quotas and why they are used can be found at the Free Trial Project Quota Requests support page. For more information about billing reports, see the Billing Reports support page.

Identifying projects

To interact with Google Cloud resources, you must provide the identifying project information for every request. A project is identified by its project ID and project number.

To get the project ID and the project number, do the following:

  1. Go to the Dashboard page in the Google Cloud console.

    Go to the Dashboard page

  2. Click the Select from drop-down list at the top of the page. In the Select from window that appears, select your project.

The project ID and project number are displayed on the project Dashboard Project info card:

In the above example, the project name is My Sample Project and the project ID is my-sample-project-191923.

Get an existing project

You can get an existing project using the Google Cloud console or the projects.get() method.

Console

To view a project using the Google Cloud console, do the following:

  1. Go to the Dashboard page in the Google Cloud console.

    Go to the Dashboard page

  2. Click the Select from drop-down list at the top of the page. In the Select from window that appears, select your project.

gcloud

To get the metadata for a project, use the gcloud projects describe command:

gcloud projects describe PROJECT_ID

Where PROJECT_ID is the ID of the project you want to view.

API

Request:

GET
https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/v3/projects/our-project-123

Response:

{
    "projectNumber": "464036093014",
    "projectId": "our-project-123",
    "lifecycleState": "ACTIVE",
    "name": "my project",
    "labels": {
        "mylabel": "prod"
    },
    "createTime": "2016-01-07T21:59:43.314Z"
}

Listing projects

List all projects under a resource

To list all projects that are direct children of a resource, use the v3 projects.list method, with the parent resource specified in the query:

Request:

GET https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/v3/projects

{
    "parent": "folders/662951040570"
}

Response:

{
    "projects": [
    {
        "name": "projects/951040570662",
        "parent": "folders/662951040570",
        "projectId": "tokyo-rain-123",
        "state": "ACTIVE",
        "displayName": "Tokyo Rain"
        "createTime": "2013-11-13T20:31:53.308Z"
        "updateTime": "2013-11-13T20:31:53.308Z"
        "etag": "BwWUlZ6XEfY="
    }
    ]
}

Search for projects

To search for projects matching the specified query, use gcloud alpha resource-manager projects search, passing the query in the --query flag. The scope of search is all the projects for which the user has projects.get permission.

gcloud

To get the list of all projects use gcloud alpha projects search command:

gcloud alpha projects search --query="displayName=rek*"
<table output showing the projects with display names starting from rek eg. rekey-project-2, rekha-project>

gcloud alpha projects search --query="state:DELETE_REQUESTED"
<table output showing the projects for which delete has been requested>

API

You can use the projects.search method and a query string to return specific project resources that match the filter. The results contain only projects for which you have been granted the resourcemanager.projects.get permission.

The following code snippet returns the Project resource with the display name "Tokyo Rain":

Request:

GET https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/v3/projects:search?query=displayName%3ATokyo%2BRain

Response:

{
  "projects": [
    {
      "name": "projects/951040570662",
      "parent": "folders/662951040570",
      "projectId": "tokyo-rain-123",
      "state": "ACTIVE",
      "displayName": "Tokyo Rain",
      "createTime": "2013-11-13T20:31:53.308Z",
      "updateTime": "2013-11-13T20:31:53.308Z",
      "etag": "BwWUlZ6XEfY="
    }
  ]
}

The following code snippet returns all Project resources with a red label:

Request:

GET https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/v3/projects:search?query=labels.color%3Ared

Response:

{
  "projects": [
    {
      "name": "projects/951054970012",
      "parent": "folders/662951040570",
      "projectId": "Osaka-rain-234",
      "state": "ACTIVE",
      "displayName": "Osaka Rain",
      "createTime": "2013-11-13T20:31:53.308Z",
      "updateTime": "2013-11-13T20:31:53.308Z",
      "etag": "BwWUlZ6XEfY=",
      "labels": {
        "color": "red"
      }
    }
  ]
}

If you specify the parent.type and parent.id fields in your request body, then the resourcemanager.projects.list permission is checked on the parent. If the user has this permission, all projects under the parent are returned after the remaining filters have been applied.

If the user lacks this permission, then all projects for which the user has the resourcemanager.projects.get permission are returned after remaining filters have been applied.

If no filter is specified, the call returns projects for which the user has resourcemanager.projects.get permissions.

Updating projects

You can update projects using the Google Cloud console or the projects.patch() method.

The only fields that can be updated are the project name and labels. For more information about updating projects, see the project API reference page.

To move a project within your resource hierarchy, see Moving a project. To migrate a project from one organization to another, see Migrating projects.

Console

To update a project's name or labels using the Google Cloud console, do the following:

  1. Open the Settings page in the Google Cloud console.

    Open the Settings page
    The remaining steps will appear automatically in the Google Cloud console.
  2. At the top of the screen, click the project selection drop-down list.
  3. On the Select from window that appears, click the organization drop-down list and then select your organization. If you are a free trial user, skip this step, as the organization list does not appear.
  4. Select your project from the list that appears.
  5. To change the project name, edit Project name, then click Save.
  6. To change labels, click Labels on the left nav. Learn more about Using Labels.

gcloud

To update a project's name or labels, use the gcloud alpha projects update command:

gcloud alpha projects update PROJECT_ID \
    --name=NAME \
    --update-labels=KEY=VALUE, ...

Where:

  • PROJECT_ID is the ID of the project you want to update.

  • NAME is the new name you want to assign to the project.

  • KEY=VALUE, ... is a list of the key=value pairs of labels you want to update. If a label already exists, its value is modified. If it does not exist, a new label is created.

For more information and additional flags that can be used with this command, see the Google Cloud CLI SDK.

API

To update a project, do the following:

The following example updates the display name of the project to myproject and sets the color label to red:

Request:

PATCH https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/v3/projects/PROJECT_NUMBER?updateMask=displayName,labels

Where PROJECT_NUMBER is the numeric ID of the project you want to update.

Request JSON body:

{
  "displayName": "myproject",
  "labels": {
    "color": "red"
  }
}

Response:

{
  "projects": [
    {
      "name": "projects/951054970012",
      "parent": "folders/662951040570",
      "projectId": "Osaka-rain-234",
      "state": "ACTIVE",
      "displayName": "myproject",
      "createTime": "2013-11-13T20:31:53.308Z",
      "updateTime": "2013-11-13T20:35:42.308Z",
      "etag": "BwWUlZ6XEfY=",
      "labels": {
        "color": "red"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Shutting down (deleting) projects

You can shut down projects using the Google Cloud console or the projects.delete method in the API. A project must have a lifecycle state of ACTIVE to be shut down in this way.

This method immediately marks a project to be deleted. A notification email is sent to the user who initiated the delete operation and the Technical category contacts that are listed in Essential Contacts on a best effort basis; if the notification fails to send, the project is still marked to be deleted. If there's no contact in the Technical category, the fallback contact isn't notified.

A project that is marked for deletion is not usable. If the project has a billing account associated with it, that association is broken, and isn't reinstated if the project delete operation is canceled. After 30 days, the project is fully deleted.

To stop the project delete process during the 30-day period, see the steps to restore a project. You can verify the number of days left in the 30-day period by using the gcloud projects describe Google Cloud CLI method.

At the end of the 30-day period, the project and all of its resources are deleted and cannot be recovered. Until it is deleted, the project counts towards your project quota.

If you have set up billing for a project, it might not be completely deleted until the current billing cycle ends and your account is successfully charged. The number and types of services in use can also affect when the system permanently deletes a project. To learn more about data retention and safe deletion, see How Google retains data we collect.

To shut down a project:

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the IAM & Admin Settings page.

    Open the Settings page
    The remaining steps will appear automatically in the Google Cloud console.
  2. On the IAM & Admin Settings page, click Select a project.
  3. Select the project you want to delete, and click Open.
  4. Click Shut down.
  5. Enter the project ID, then click Shut down.

gcloud

To delete a project, use the gcloud projects delete command:

gcloud projects delete PROJECT_ID

Where PROJECT_ID is the ID of the project you want to delete.

API

The following code snippet deletes the specified project:

Request:

DELETE
https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/v3/projects/my-project-123

Troubleshooting project deletion

If the process to shut down a project fails, you can find more information at Troubleshooting project deletion.

Restoring a project

Project owners can restore a deleted project within the 30-day recovery period that starts when the project is shut down. Restoring a project returns it to the state it was in before it was shut down, with certain exceptions:

  • Billing is disabled on the project when the project is shut down and billing is not automatically enabled on restored projects. The Cloud Billing account must be manually linked again after the project is restored. You might need to wait a few hours before you can successfully link a recently restored project to a billing account.
  • You can recover most resources if you restore a project within the 30-day period. Some services have delays in restoring and you might need to wait some time for services to be restored.
  • Some resources, such as Cloud Storage or Pub/Sub resources, are deleted much sooner. These resources might not be fully recoverable even if you restore the project within the 30-day period.
  • Some services might need to be restarted manually. For more information, see Restarting Google Cloud Services.

You must have the resourcemanager.projects.undelete permission on the project you wish to restore. To restore a project:

Console

To view the project in the Google Cloud console, you need the following permissions:

  • resourcemanager.projects.list
  • resourcemanager.folders.list
  • resourcemanager.projects.get

To restore a project using the Google Cloud console:

  1. Go to the Manage resources page in the Google Cloud console.

    Go to the Manage Resources page

  2. In the Project picker at the top of the page, select your organization.

  3. Below the list of organizations, folders, and projects, click Resources pending deletion.

  4. Check the box for the project you want to restore, then click Restore. In the dialog that appears, confirm that you want to restore the project.

gcloud

To restore a project, use the gcloud projects undelete command:

gcloud projects undelete PROJECT_ID

Where PROJECT_ID is the project ID or project number of the project you want to restore.

API

The following code snippet restores the specified project:

Request:

POST
https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/v3/projects/my-project-123:undelete