Which method you choose to access public data depends on how you want to work with the data. When accessing public data via the Google Cloud Console, you must authenticate with Google. You can authenticate with any Google account; the account does not have to be associated with the project that contains the public data, nor does it need to be signed up for the Cloud Storage service.
By contrast, accessing public data with gsutil or a Cloud Storage API link does not require authentication. These methods are suited for general-purpose links to publicly shared data. For example, an API link can be used in a web page, with client libraries, or with a command-line tool such as cURL.
To access public data:
API Link
Accessing this link does not require authentication. It is suitable, for example, as a link in a web page, or for downloading with a command-line tool such as cURL.
Get the name of the bucket containing the public data.
Use the following URI to access an object in the bucket:
https://storage.googleapis.com/BUCKET_NAME/OBJECT_NAME
For example, the Google public bucket gcp-public-data-landsat
contains
the Landsat public dataset. You can link to the publicly shared object
LC08/PRE/063/046/LC80630462016136LGN00/LC80630462016136LGN00_B11.TIF
with the link:
https://storage.googleapis.com/gcp-public-data-landsat/LC08/PRE/063/046/LC80630462016136LGN00/LC80630462016136LGN00_B11.TIF
Console
Accessing this link requires authentication with Google. You should
generally use the method described in the API link tab to access links
to individual objects in a public bucket. You can only access public objects
via the Cloud Console if you have storage.objects.list
permission
for the bucket that contains the objects.
Get the name of the public bucket.
Using a web browser, access the bucket with the following URI (you will be asked to sign in if necessary):
https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/browser/BUCKET_NAME
For example, the Google public bucket gcp-public-data-landsat
contains
the Landsat public dataset. You can access the bucket with:
https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/browser/gcp-public-data-landsat
gsutil
If you don't have gsutil, follow these instructions to install gsutil.
Get the name of the bucket containing the public data.
If the bucket is public (and not just some of the data within it), you can list some or all of the data (objects) contained in the bucket by using the
ls
command.For example, the Google public bucket
gcp-public-data-landsat
contains the Landsat public dataset. You can list files with the prefixLC08/PRE/063/046/LC80630462016
with the command:gsutil ls -r gs://gcp-public-data-landsat/LC08/PRE/063/046/LC80630462016*
Get specific public objects contained in the bucket by using the
cp
command.For example, the following command downloads a file from the bucket
gcp-public-data-landsat
to your local directory:gsutil cp gs://gcp-public-data-landsat/LC08/PRE/063/046/LC80630462016136LGN00/LC80630462016136LGN00_B11.TIF .
Code samples
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage C++ API reference documentation.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Go API reference documentation.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Java API reference documentation.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Node.js API reference documentation.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Python API reference documentation.
For more information, see the
Cloud Storage Ruby API reference documentation.
C++
Go
Java
Node.js
Python
Ruby
What's next
- Learn how to publicly share an object.
- Learn about options to control access to your data.
- Control access to your data using IAM permissions.
- Download objects from a bucket.