Objects: list

Retrieves a list of objects matching the criteria, ordered in the list lexicographically by name.

In buckets with a flat namespace, the use of the delimiter parameter in conjunction with the prefix filter allows the list method to operate like a directory listing. For example, consider a bucket that contains the objects "a/b", "a/c", "d", "e", "e/f", and "e/g/h":

  • If delimiter is set to "/" and prefix is not set, then an object listing of the bucket returns object metadata for objects "d" and "e". It also returns "a/" and "e/" in the prefixes[] list.
  • If delimiter is set to "/" and prefix is set to "e/", then an object listing of the bucket returns object metadata for object "e/f". It also returns "g/" in the prefixes[] list.

Required permissions

The authenticated user must have the storage.objects.list IAM permission to use this method. To return object ACLs, the authenticated user must also have the storage.objects.getIamPolicy permission.

Request

HTTP request

GET https://storage.googleapis.com/storage/v1/b/bucket/o

In addition to standard query parameters, the following query parameters apply to this method.

To see an example of how to include query parameters in a request, see the JSON API Overview page.

Parameters

Parameter name Value Description
Path parameters
bucket string Name of the bucket in which to look for objects.
Optional query parameters
delimiter string

Returns results in a directory-like mode, with / being a common value for the delimiter.

  • items[] contains object metadata for objects whose names do not contain delimiter, or whose names only have instances of delimiter in their prefix.
  • prefixes[] contains truncated object names for objects whose names contain delimiter after any prefix, and can also contain empty folders and managed folders when includeFoldersAsPrefixes is true. Object names are truncated beyond the first applicable instance of the delimiter, mimicking a directory. If multiple objects have the same truncated name, duplicates are omitted. Truncated object names in prefixes[] always end with /.

delimiter must be either excluded or set to / in requests that use the matchGlob parameter, and delimiter must be set to / in requests that use the includeFoldersAsPrefixes parameter, which returns managed folders.
endOffset string Filter results to objects whose names are lexicographically before endOffset. If startOffset is also set, the objects listed have names between startOffset (inclusive) and endOffset (exclusive).
includeFoldersAsPrefixes boolean If true, includes empty folders and managed folders in results, within prefixes[]. If this parameter is used, delimiter must be set to /.
includeTrailingDelimiter boolean If true, objects that end in exactly one instance of delimiter have their metadata included in items[] in addition to the relevant part of the object name appearing in prefixes[].
maxResults integer Maximum combined number of entries in items[] and prefixes[] to return in a single page of responses. The service may return fewer results than maxResults so the presence of nextPageToken should always be checked. The recommended upper value for maxResults is 1000 objects in a single response.
matchGlob string

A glob pattern used to filter results (for example, foo*bar). The value must be UTF-8 encoded and has a maximum size of 1024 bytes.

Objects that match the glob are returned in items[].

When delimiter is used in conjunction with matchGlob, it must be set to /. Object prefixes that contain the delimiter and match the glob are returned in prefixes[]. If delimiter is not set, the prefixes[] field is empty in the response. See List prefixes only for information on how to list only object prefixes.
pageToken string A previously-returned page token representing part of the larger set of results to view.

The pageToken is an encoded field that marks the name and generation of the last object in the returned list. In a subsequent request using the pageToken, items that come after the pageToken are shown (up to maxResults).

If you start a listing and then create an object in the bucket before using a pageToken to continue listing, you do not see the new object in subsequent listing results if it is in part of the object namespace already listed.
prefix string Filter results to include only objects whose names begin with this prefix. When prefix is set, the names of the objects returned in the response are relative to the root of the bucket.
projection string Set of properties to return. Defaults to noAcl.

Acceptable values are:
  • full: Include all properties.
  • noAcl: Omit the owner, acl property.
startOffset string Filter results to objects whose names are lexicographically equal to or after startOffset. If endOffset is also set, the objects listed have names between startOffset (inclusive) and endOffset (exclusive).
softDeleted boolean If true, only returns soft-deleted objects as part of the objects list response. Soft-deleted objects are returned as distinct results in order of increasing generation number. The softDeleted parameter can only be used successfully if the bucket has a soft delete policy. Otherwise, the request fails with a 400 Bad Request error with the reason invalidArgument. If true, versions cannot be set to true.
versions boolean If true, lists all versions of an object as distinct results in order of increasing generation number. The default value for versions is false. For more information, see Object Versioning.

Request body

Do not supply a request body with this method.

List objects and prefixes using glob

When the matchGlob query parameter is set to a glob pattern, the objects list operation only returns objects that match the glob pattern in items[]. When delimiter is set to / in conjunction with matchGlob, the objects list operation additionally filters results for object prefixes, where prefixes that match the given glob are returned in prefixes[]. To learn how to list prefixes only, see List prefixes only.

Cloud Storage supports the following syntax for glob patterns:

Syntax Description Notes
? Match any single character, excluding /.
* Match zero or more characters, excluding /.
** Match zero or more characters, including /.
**/ Match zero or more characters that end in /. As a special case, if at a directory boundary, can match zero characters even if the trailing slash is not present. For example, the glob pattern foo/**/bar can be used to match foo/bar and foo/baz/bar. A directory boundary exists at the beginning of the pattern and immediately after each slash (/).
[abc] Match exactly one of the characters between the brackets.
[a-z] Match exactly one character that is in the inclusive range a to z.

Within a single character class, multiple ranges and characters can be used. For example, [0-9XYZa-z] is the union of [0-9], [XYZ], and [a-z].
[!abc] or [^abc] Match exactly one character that is not in the character class defined by [abc].

Within a single character class, multiple ranges and characters can be used. For example, [!0-9XYZa-z] is the intersection of [!0-9], [!XYZ], and [!a-z].
{abc,xyz} Match one of abc or xyz.
{foo,{a,b}{x,y},bar} Match one of foo, ax, ay, bx, by, or bar.
{foo*,*bar} Match anything prefixed with foo or suffixed with bar. Excludes / characters.
\? Match the character after the backslash without interpreting it as a special character. Special characters are ?, *, \, [, ], {, and }.

For example, to filter for the object foo/bar/dog.jpeg, matchGlob should be set to foo/bar/*?.

List prefixes only

To use matchGlob to filter for prefixes, delimiter must be set to /. Object prefixes always end with /, so glob patterns that match a trailing / (for example, **/) can be used to filter results to object prefixes only. Glob patterns that match a trailing ? (for example, **?) can be used to filter results to objects only.

Response

If successful, this method returns a response body with the following structure:

{
  "kind": "storage#objects",
  "nextPageToken": string,
  "prefixes": [
    string
  ],
  "items": [
    objects Resource
  ]
}
Property name Value Description Notes
kind string The kind of item this is. For lists of objects, this is always "storage#objects".
nextPageToken string The continuation token. Provide this value as the pageToken of a subsequent request in order to return the next page of results. Note that the next page may be empty. If this is the last page of results, then no continuation token is returned. The presence of this parameter in the response should always be checked to ensure a complete listing of all the results.
prefixes[] list Object name prefixes for objects that matched the listing request but were excluded from items[] because of a delimiter. Values in this list are object names up to and including the requested delimiter. Duplicate entries are omitted from this list. If matchGlob was used in the request, only prefixes matching the glob pattern are returned.
items[] list The list of objects, ordered lexicographically by name. If matchGlob was used in the request, only objects matching the glob pattern are returned.

For information about status and error codes returned by this API, see the reference page.

Try it!

Use the APIs Explorer below to call this method on live data and see the response.