Request endpoints

This page explains the different request endpoints (URIs) you can use to access Cloud Storage.

Note: The Cloud Storage URIs described on this page are subject to change.

Typical API requests

When making requests directly to one of the Cloud Storage APIs, use the following URIs:

JSON API

• For general JSON API requests, excluding object uploads, use the following endpoint, replacing [VALUES_IN_BRACKETS] with the appropriate values:

  https://storage.googleapis.com/storage/v1/[PATH_TO_RESOURCE]

• For JSON API object uploads, use the following endpoint, replacing [VALUES_IN_BRACKETS] with the appropriate values:

  https://storage.googleapis.com/upload/storage/v1/b/[BUCKET_NAME]/o

• For batched requests, use the following endpoint, replacing [VALUES_IN_BRACKETS] with the appropriate values:

  https://storage.googleapis.com/batch/storage/v1/[PATH_TO_RESOURCE]

JSON API endpoints only accept HTTPS requests.

Note: The www.googleapis.com endpoint is also supported for the JSON API, but storage.googleapis.com is the preferred endpoint.

XML API

Important: If you intend to serve content through a browser, note that the XML API serves content from the same origin as the request endpoint. If you need to serve content from a unique origin, consider using the JSON API or Authenticated browser downloads.

• For typical XML API requests, you can use either the virtual hosted-style or path-style endpoint, replacing [VALUES_IN_BRACKETS] with the appropriate values:

  Virtual hosted-style:

  https://[BUCKET_NAME].storage.googleapis.com/[OBJECT_NAME]

  Path-style:

  https://storage.googleapis.com/[BUCKET_NAME]/[OBJECT_NAME]

  Note: Virtual hosted-style endpoints cannot be used to access domain-named buckets. Use either path-style endpoints or a CNAME redirect instead.

Optionally for uploads and downloads, Cloud Storage offers dedicated XML API endpoints. These upload and download endpoints may provide a small performance benefit when transferring large amounts of data.

• For uploads, you can use either the virtual hosted-style or path-style endpoint, replacing [VALUES_IN_BRACKETS] with the appropriate values:

  Virtual hosted-style:

  https://[BUCKET_NAME].storage-upload.googleapis.com/[OBJECT_NAME]

  Path-style:

  https://storage-upload.googleapis.com/[BUCKET_NAME]/[OBJECT_NAME]

• For downloads, you can use either the virtual hosted-style or path-style endpoint, replacing [VALUES_IN_BRACKETS] with the appropriate values:

  Virtual hosted-style:

  https://[BUCKET_NAME].storage-download.googleapis.com/[OBJECT_NAME]

  Path-style:

  https://storage-download.googleapis.com/[BUCKET_NAME]/[OBJECT_NAME]

All XML API endpoints support secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption, which means you can use either HTTP or HTTPS. Using HTTPS is recommended, especially if you authenticate to Cloud Storage using OAuth 2.0.

For connections through a proxy, see the Troubleshooting topic for recommended practices.

Encoding URI path parts

In addition to general bucket and object naming considerations, to ensure compatibility across Cloud Storage tools, you should encode the following characters when they appear in either the object name or query string of a request URI:

!, #, $, &, ', (, ), *, +, ,, /, :, ;, =, ?, @, [, ], and space characters.

For example, if you send a JSON API GET request for the object named foo??bar in the bucket example-bucket, then your request URI should be:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/storage/v1/b/example-bucket/o/foo%3f%3fbar

Note that not all of the listed characters must be encoded in every scenario: for example, the / character must be encoded only when rewriting or copying with the JSON API and only for the source object in such a rewrite/copy.

For more information about using percent-encoded for URIs, see Section 3.3 Path in RFC 3986. Note that encoding is typically handled for you by client libraries, such as the Cloud Storage Client Libraries, so you can pass the raw object name to them.

CNAME Redirects

A CNAME redirect is a special DNS record that lets you use URIs from your own domain to access resources in Cloud Storage through the XML API without revealing the actual XML API URIs. To do this, the following URI must be added to the host name portion of your CNAME record:

c.storage.googleapis.com.

For example, say your domain is example.com, and you want to make travel maps available to your customers. You can create a bucket in Cloud Storage called travel-maps.example.com, and then create a CNAME record in DNS that redirects requests from travel-maps.example.com to the Cloud Storage URI. To do this, you publish the following CNAME record in DNS:

NAME                      TYPE     DATA
travel-maps.example.com   CNAME    c.storage.googleapis.com.

By doing this, your customers can use the following URL to access a map of Paris:

http://travel-maps.example.com/paris.jpg

Your domain registration service should have a way for you to administer your domain, including adding a CNAME resource record. For example, if you use Google Domains, instructions for adding a resource record can be found on the Google Domains Help page, in the Resource records drop-down section.

Note: You can use a CNAME redirect only with HTTP, not with HTTPS. To serve your content through a custom domain over SSL, you can set up a load balancer.

Note: When creating a bucket to serve resources for redirect requests, the bucket name must conform to standard DNS naming conventions. See Bucket Name Requirements for more information.

Authenticated Browser Downloads

Authenticated browser downloads use cookie-based authentication. Cookie-based authentication asks users to sign in to their Google account to establish their identity. The specified Google account must have appropriate permission to access the resource, granted though IAM policies or Access Control Lists, in order to perform the browser download.

To download an object using cookie-based authentication, use the following URL, replacing [VALUES_IN_BRACKETS] with the appropriate values:

https://storage.cloud.google.com/[BUCKET_NAME]/[OBJECT_NAME]

For example, if you shared an image london.jpg from your bucket example-maps, the URL would be:

https://storage.cloud.google.com/example-maps/london.jpg

Using HTTPS is required when performing authenticated browser downloads; attempts to use HTTP redirect to HTTPS. For more information about authenticated browser downloads, see Cookie-based Authentication.

Important: If you have enabled Cloud Audit Logs Data Access logs on your bucket, users cannot use authenticated browser downloads to access objects in the bucket.

Access to public objects

All requests to the storage.cloud.google.com URI require authentication. This applies even when allUsers have permission to access an object. If you want users to download anonymously accessible objects without authenticating, use the storage.googleapis.com URI documented in Direct API requests. For details and examples, see Accessing Public Data.

What's next

• Upload a file to Cloud Storage.
• Download a file from Cloud Storage.
• Host a static website.