gsutil is a Python application that lets you access Cloud Storage from the command line. You can use gsutil to do a wide range of bucket and object management tasks, including:
- Creating and deleting buckets.
- Uploading, downloading, and deleting objects.
- Listing buckets and objects.
- Moving, copying, and renaming objects.
- Editing object and bucket ACLs.
gsutil performs all operations, including uploads and downloads, using HTTPS and transport-layer security (TLS).
Should you use gsutil?
Generally, you should use gcloud storage
commands instead of gsutil
commands:
The gsutil tool is a legacy Cloud Storage CLI and minimally maintained.
The gsutil tool does not support working with newer Cloud Storage features.
gcloud storage
commands require less manual optimization in order to achieve the fastest upload and download rates.
Syntax for accessing resources
gsutil uses the prefix gs://
to indicate a resource in Cloud Storage:
gs://BUCKET_NAME/OBJECT_NAME
In addition to specifying exact resources, gsutil supports the use of wildcards in your commands.
Built-in help
gsutil contains thorough built-in help about every command as well as a number
of topics, which you can list and read with the gsutil help
command.
To get information about a specific command or topic, use gsutil help
followed
by the intended command or topic name. For example, gsutil help cp
and
gsutil help options
are a command help page and a topic help page,
respectively.
To get information about your gsutil installation, use the gsutil version command:
gsutil version -l
Usage statistics
During the installation process, you can opt-in to tracking usage statistics which helps improve the gsutil tool. If you subsequently decide that you want to disable these usage statistics, see Usage statistics.
About gsutil
gsutil is an open-source project. To download the developer version of gsutil or volunteer to help develop gsutil, visit the gsutil project on GitHub.
Limitations
- When using gsutil with Windows, commands that use the
-m
global flag cannot be canceled usingCtrl-C
.
What's next
- Install gsutil.
- See community discussion in gsutil Stack Overflow questions.