How-to guides

Creating buckets

• Creating storage buckets

  Create buckets in which you store your data.

• Bucket naming guidelines

  The requirements and guidelines to follow when creating buckets and uploading objects.

• Bucket locations

  An explanation of bucket location, including a list of locations currently available and considerations when choosing a location.

• Storage classes

  An overview and comparison of the storage classes you can choose from when using Cloud Storage.

• Domain-named bucket verification

  The requirements for creating buckets with domain names, as well as methods for providing the necessary verification to do so.

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Working with buckets

• Listing buckets

  List the buckets that are part of your Google Cloud project.

• Bucket metadata

  Learn about the properties of a bucket.

• Getting bucket information

  Get the properties of a bucket.

• Changing the default storage class of a bucket

  Change the overall storage class of a bucket. By default, new objects uploaded to the bucket are set to this storage class.

• Moving and renaming buckets

  Learn how to move or rename your bucket.

• Labeling buckets

  Add, view, edit, and remove labels for a bucket.

• Requester Pays overview

  The Requester Pays feature enables costs for accessing buckets and objects to be billed to a requester-specified project instead of the project of the bucket being accessed.

• Using Requester Pays

  Set your bucket to require that requesters include a project ID for billing charges associated with accessing your data.

• Deleting buckets

  Delete a bucket.

Uploading and downloading objects

• Uploads and downloads

  There are different ways to upload and download objects.

• Uploading objects

  Store objects in your Cloud Storage bucket.

• Downloading objects

  Access objects in your Cloud Storage bucket.

• Resumable uploads overview

  Resumable uploads are useful when uploading large files to Cloud Storage.

• Performing resumable uploads

  Learn how to perform a resumable upload with the JSON API and XML API.

• Streaming transfers

  Stream data to and from Cloud Storage.

Working with objects

• Object naming guidelines

  The requirements and guidelines to follow when creating buckets and uploading objects.

• Listing objects

  List the objects stored in your Cloud Storage bucket.

• Copying, renaming, and moving objects

  Rename, copy, and move objects within and between Cloud Storage buckets.

• Changing object storage classes

  Change the storage class of individual objects within your bucket.

• Object metadata overview

  Objects in Cloud Storage are stored with additional metadata, including custom metadata that you define.

• Viewing and editing object metadata

  Work with the metadata for objects stored in Cloud Storage.

• Composite objects overview

  The composite object feature of Cloud Storage allows you to combine multiple source objects into one new object.

• Composing objects

  Combine multiple source objects to create a composite object.

• Deleting objects

  Remove objects from your Cloud Storage bucket.

Controlling data lifecycles

• Object Versioning overview

  The Object Versioning feature of Cloud Storage allows you to retain older versions of your data when you replace them with newer versions.

• Using Object Versioning

  Set your bucket to retain older versions of your objects when they are deleted or replaced.

• Retention policies and retention policy locks

  Retention policies prevent objects within your buckets from being modified or deleted for a set period of time. A retention policy lock on a bucket irreversibly prevents your retention policy from being reduced or deleted.

• Using and locking retention policies

  Add a retention policy to your bucket that prevents objects within the bucket from being replaced or deleted for a set period of time. Lock your retention policy to prevent it from being reduced or removed.

• Object holds

  An object hold prevents an individual object from being replaced or deleted while the hold is in place.

• Using object holds

  Learn how to use the default event-based hold property on buckets and how to use object holds on individual objects.

• Object Lifecycle Management overview

  The Object Lifecycle Management feature of Cloud Storage allows you to automatically manage and delete older versions of objects when they meet criteria that you define.

• Managing object lifecycles

  Set your bucket to automatically delete or change the storage class of objects within it when specified criteria are met.

Controlling access

• Overview of access control

  An overview page presenting the different methods you can use to control access to your buckets and objects.

• Making data public

  Make objects you control publicly readable.

• Accessing public data

  Access data stored in Cloud Storage that is available to the general public.

• Identity and Access Management (IAM) overview

  IAM allows you to control who has access to your buckets and objects.

• Using IAM permissions

  Use IAM permissions to give users access to buckets and objects.

• IAM references for Cloud Storage

  A collection of reference pages relevant to using IAM with Cloud Storage.

• Uniform bucket-level access overview

  Uniform bucket-level access prevents permissions from being granted at the object level.

• Using uniform bucket-level access

  Use uniform bucket-level access to prevent permissions from being granted at the object level.

• Access Control Lists (ACLs) overview

  Access control lists allow you to specify user access to individual objects within a bucket.

• Creating and managing Access Control Lists (ACLs)

  Use access control lists to give users specific types of access to buckets and data.

• Sharing and collaboration scenarios

  Follow several different scenarios for controlling access to your data.

• Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) overview

  Learn about how cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) works on Cloud Storage.

• Configuring Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

  Learn how to configure cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) on your buckets.

Encrypting data

• Data encryption options

  Encryption is automatically performed on your data by Cloud Storage. This page also provides an overview of other encryption options you can use to encrypt your object data.

• Customer-managed encryption keys overview

  Customer-Managed Encryption Keys allow you to manage encryption keys created by Cloud Key Management Service that Cloud Storage uses to encrypt your data.

• Using customer-managed encryption keys

  Encrypt data on the server side using encryption keys that you manage.

• Customer-supplied encryption keys overview

  Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys allow you to create and manage the keys Cloud Storage uses to encrypt your data.

• Using customer-supplied encryption keys

  Encrypt data on the server side using your own encryption keys.

• Google-managed encryption keys

  Encryption is automatically performed on your stored data by Cloud Storage.

• Client-side encryption keys

  You can encrypt your data before sending it to Cloud Storage.

Tracking updates and access to data

• Pub/Sub notifications for Cloud Storage overview

  Pub/Sub Notifications record changes to objects in your Cloud Storage buckets.

• Using Pub/Sub notifications for Cloud Storage

  Enable and configure notifications that are sent to Pub/Sub when objects in your buckets change.

• Cloud Audit Logs with Cloud Storage

  Cloud Audit Logs allows you to generate logs for API operations performed in Cloud Storage.

• Usage logs & storage logs

  Work with the usage logs for your buckets, such as by analyzing them with Google BigQuery.

Working with projects

• Projects

  A description of the relationship between Google Cloud projects and Cloud Storage resources, including Cloud Storage service accounts.

• Organization policy constraints for Cloud Storage

  Organization policies allow you to enforce certain settings across all your buckets or projects.

Managing service accounts and HMAC keys

• HMAC keys overview

  HMAC keys allow you to make signed requests to the XML API.

• Getting the Cloud Storage service agent

  Get the email address of a project's Cloud Storage service agent.

• Managing HMAC keys for service accounts

  Create, disable, and delete HMAC keys for service accounts.

Authenticating with V4 signing

• Signed URLs overview

  Signed URLs allow you to give time-limited access to objects with a URL that may be used by anyone with whom you share the URL.

• V4 signing process with Cloud Storage tools

  Create signed URLs, which give users time-limited access to your data, with the gsutil command-line tool.

• V4 signing process with your own program

  Create signed URLs, which give users time-limited access to your data, with your own program.

• Canonical requests

  Canonical requests form the basis for accessing Cloud Storage resources with signed requests and signed URLs.

• Signatures

  Signatures are one method for making authenticated requests to Cloud Storage.

• Migrating from Amazon S3 to Cloud Storage

  A discussion of migration scenarios accomplished through using the XML API.