Quickstart for macOS

This page shows how to install the Google Cloud SDK, initialize it, and run core gcloud commands from the command-line.

Before you begin

Create a Google Cloud Platform project, if you don't have one already.
Cloud SDK requires Python. Supported versions are 3.5 to 3.7, and 2.7.9 or higher. To check the Python version installed on your system:
```
python -V
```
Note: Cloud SDK uses Python 2 by default, but will soon move to Python 3 (run gcloud topic startup for exclusions and more information on configuring your Python interpreter to use a different version). Consider upgrading to Python 3 to avoid disruption in the future.

Download the archive file best suited to your operating system. Most machines will run the 64-bit package.

Platform	Package	Size	SHA256 Checksum
macOS 64-bit (x86_64)	google-cloud-sdk-294.0.0-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz	70.5 MB	0bb172000bcf861f1be054c1ae30856b8f3a90b754cb642aff2c44f2678a0db5
macOS 32-bit (x86)	google-cloud-sdk-294.0.0-darwin-x86.tar.gz	68.6 MB	9cc6900664463783e39cece9ccb34dd897bc348a6374a2c828a8682cf8af22ff

Extract the archive to any location on your file system; preferably, your home directory. On macOS, this can be achieved by opening the downloaded .tar.gz archive file in the preferred location.
Optional: Use the install script to add Cloud SDK tools to your path. You will also be able to opt-in to command-completion for your bash shell and usage statistics collection during the installation process. Run the script using this command:
```
./google-cloud-sdk/install.sh
```
Restart your terminal for the changes to take effect.

Alternatively, you can call Cloud SDK after extracting the downloaded archive by invoking its executables via the full path.

Initialize the SDK

Use the gcloud init command to perform several common SDK setup tasks. These include authorizing the SDK tools to access Google Cloud Platform using your user account credentials and setting up the default SDK configuration.

To initialize the SDK:

Run the following at a command prompt:
```
gcloud init
```
Troubleshooting tip: If you encounter an error related to the gcloud command not being found, run ./google-cloud-sdk/install.sh to use the install script; it adds Cloud SDK tools to your PATH. Restart your terminal for the changes to take effect.

Note: To prevent the command from launching a web browser, use gcloud init --console-only instead. To authorize without a web browser and non-interactively, create a service account with the appropriate scopes using the Google Cloud Console and use gcloud auth activate-service-account with the corresponding JSON key file.

Accept the option to log in using your Google user account:

To continue, you must log in. Would you like to log in (Y/n)? Y

In your browser, log in to your Google user account when prompted and click Allow to grant permission to access Google Cloud Platform resources.
At the command prompt, select a Cloud Platform project from the list of those where you have Owner, Editor or Viewer permissions:
```
Pick cloud project to use:
 [1] [my-project-1]
 [2] [my-project-2]
 ...
 Please enter your numeric choice:
```
If you only have one project, gcloud init selects it for you.

If you have the Google Compute Engine API enabled, gcloud init allows you to choose a default Compute Engine zone:

Which compute zone would you like to use as project default?
 [1] [asia-east1-a]
 [2] [asia-east1-b]
 ...
 [14] Do not use default zone
 Please enter your numeric choice:

gcloud init confirms that you have complete the setup steps successfully:

gcloud has now been configured!
You can use [gcloud config] to change more gcloud settings.

Your active configuration is: [default]

(Optional) If you'd like a more streamlined screen reader experience, the gcloud command-line tool comes with an accessibility/screen_reader property.

To enable this property, run:
```
gcloud config set accessibility/screen_reader true
```
For more details about the accessibility features that come with the gcloud command-line tool, refer to the Enabling accessibility features guide.

Run core gcloud commands

Run these gcloud commands to view information about your SDK installation:

To list accounts whose credentials are stored on the local system:

gcloud auth list

gcloud displays a list of credentialed accounts:

       Credentialed Accounts
ACTIVE             ACCOUNT
*                  example-user-1@gmail.com
                   example-user-2@gmail.com

To list the properties in your active SDK configuration:

gcloud config list

gcloud displays the list of properties:

[core]
account = example-user-1@gmail.com
disable_usage_reporting = False
project = example-project

To view information about your Cloud SDK installation and the active SDK configuration:
```
gcloud info
```
gcloud displays a summary of information about your Cloud SDK installation. This includes information about your system, the installed SDK components, the active user account and current project, and the properties in the active SDK configuration.
To view information about gcloud commands and other topics from the command line:
```
gcloud help
```
For example, to view the help for gcloud compute instances create:
```
gcloud help compute instances create
```
gcloud displays a help topic that contains a description of the command, a list of command flags and arguments, and examples of how to use it.

What's next

Read the gcloud tool guide for an overview of the gcloud command-line tool, including a quick introduction to key concepts, command conventions, and helpful tips.
Read the gcloud reference guide for detailed pages on each gcloud command, including descriptions, flags, and examples, that you can use to perform a variety of tasks on Google Cloud Platform.
Install additional components such as the App Engine emulators or kubectl using the Cloud SDK component manager.