Discover object storage with the Google Cloud console

Discover object storage with the Google Cloud console

Learn how to get started with Cloud Storage using the Google Cloud console.

Costs that you incur in Cloud Storage are based on the resources you use. This quickstart typically uses less than $0.01 USD worth of Cloud Storage resources.

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For an interactive walkthrough similar to these tasks in Google Cloud console, click Guide me:

Guide me

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Before you begin

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

4. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

5. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

Create a bucket

Buckets are the basic containers that hold your data in Cloud Storage.

To create a bucket:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Cloud Storage Buckets page.
   

   Go to Buckets

2. Click Create to open the bucket creation form.

3. Expand each section to enter your bucket information and click Continue to complete each step:

   1. In the Getting started section, enter a globally unique name for your bucket.

      • Don't include sensitive information in the bucket name, because the bucket namespace is global and publicly visible.

        See bucket naming requirements.

        • Bucket names can only contain lowercase letters, numeric characters, dashes (-), underscores (_), and dots (.). Spaces are not allowed. Names containing dots require verification.
        • Bucket names must start and end with a number or letter.
        • Bucket names must contain 3-63 characters. Names containing dots can contain up to 222 characters, but each dot-separated component can be no longer than 63 characters.
        • Bucket names cannot be represented as an IP address in dotted-decimal notation (for example, 192.168.5.4).
        • Bucket names cannot begin with the "goog" prefix.
        • Bucket names cannot contain "google" or close misspellings, such as "g00gle".

   2. In the Choose where to store your data section, choose Region as the Location type, and then use the default value.

   3. In the Choose a storage class for your data section, use the default values.

   4. In the Choose how to control access to objects section, do the following:

      1. Clear Enforce public access prevention on this bucket; this lets you share the object later.

      2. For Access control, use the default value.

   5. In the Choose how to protect object data section, use the default value.

4. Click Create.

That's it — you've just created a Cloud Storage bucket!

Upload an object into the bucket

To upload a sample object into your new bucket:

1. Right-click the following image and download it to your computer.

   

2. In the Cloud Storage buckets page, click the name of the bucket that you created.

3. In the Objects tab, click Upload files.

4. In the file dialog, go to the file that you downloaded and select it.

After the upload completes, you should see the filename and information about the file, such as its size and type.

Download the object

To download the image from your bucket, click Download .

Share the object

To allow public access to the bucket and create a publicly accessible URL for the image:

1. Click the Permissions tab above the list of files.

2. Click the Grant Access button to add a new Principal.

   The Add principals pane appears.

3. In the New principals box, enter allUsers.

4. In the Select a role drop-down, select Cloud Storage > Storage Object Viewer.

5. Click Save.

6. In the Are you sure you want to make this resource public? window, click Allow public access.

To verify, click the Objects tab to return to the list of objects. Your object's Public access column should read Public to internet. The Copy URL button provides a shareable URL similar to the following: https://storage.googleapis.com/YOUR_BUCKET_NAME/kitten.png

To remove public access from the bucket and stop sharing the image publicly:

1. Click the Permissions tab above the list of objects.

2. Click the checkbox associated with the entry that has allUsers listed in the Principal column.

3. Click the Remove Access button.

4. In the dialog that appears, click Confirm.

In the Objects tab, you should see that the image no longer has a Copy URL button associated with it.

Note: After you remove public access to the image, you may be able to access a cached version of it for a period of time.

Create folders

1. In the Objects tab, click Create folder.

2. Enter folder1 for Name and click Create.

You should see the folder in the bucket with an image of a folder icon to distinguish it from objects.

Create a subfolder and upload a file to it:

1. Click folder1.

2. Click Create folder.

3. Enter folder2 for Name and click Create.

4. Click folder2.

5. Click Upload files.

6. In the file dialog, navigate to the screenshot that you downloaded and select it.

After the upload completes, you should see the file name and information about the file, such as its size and type.

Delete the objects

1. Click the arrow next to Bucket details to return to the buckets level.

2. Select the bucket.

3. Select the checkbox next to folder1.

4. Click the Delete button.

5. In the window that opens, confirm you want to proceed with the deletion.

6. Click Delete to permanently delete the folder and all objects and subfolders in it.

Clean up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used on this page, follow these steps.

1. Open the Cloud Storage buckets page in the Google Cloud console.
   Open the Buckets page
2. Select the checkbox next to the bucket that you created.
3. Click Delete.
4. In the window that opens, confirm you want to delete the bucket.
5. Click Delete.

What's next

• Work through the Cloud Storage Quickstart using the Google Cloud CLI.
• Read the Cloud Storage product overview.
• Learn about storage classes.

• Learn about Cloud Storage pricing.

• Get started with the Cloud Storage client libraries.