Copy an object

To copy an object, you make a PUT request that is scoped to the new bucket and object name and you specify the source object with the x-goog-copy-source request header.

If you are using the PUT Object method to copy an object, you must have READ permission on the source object and you must have WRITE or FULL_CONTROL permission on the bucket to which you are copying the object. To copy an object to itself you must use the x-goog-metadata-directive header and you must specify REPLACE, which replaces all of the source object's metadata with whatever metadata you specify in the request. The x-goog-metadata-directive header also lets you copy the source object's metadata to the newly-created object as part of the copy operation. If you copy the metadata, the ACLs are not copied and the default object ACLs are applied to the new object. You can apply different ACLs during a copy operation by using the x-goog-acl request header. Also, during a copy operation the request body must be empty.

If any of the conditional copy headers fail to match the condition you specify you will get a 412 Precondition Failed status code and the body of the error response will have PreconditionFailed in the Code element.

Query string parameters

Parameter	Description	Required
Expires	Used for Signed URLs.	No
GoogleAccessId	Used for Signed URLs.	No
Signature	Used for Signed URLs.	No

Request headers

In addition to common request headers, the following can be used.

Header	Description	Required
Content-Encoding	The compression algorithm that was used to compress the object you are uploading.	No
Content-Disposition	A header you can set on an object that specifies presentational information about how the object data is to be transmitted.	No
x-goog-acl	The predefined ACL that you want to apply to the bucket. Do not use if you are using the acl query string parameter to apply ACLs.	No
x-goog-metadata-directive	The instructions for handling metadata during a copy operation. Can be COPY or REPLACE. The default value is COPY.	No
x-goog-meta-	An extension header that can be used to store additional metadata that is not provided by the other fields.	No
x-goog-copy-source	The bucket/object path to the object you want to copy. For example, /travel-maps/paris.jpg.	Yes
x-goog-copy-source-generation	The generation number of the object you want to copy.	No
x-goog-copy-source-if-match	An ETag. If the ETag you specify matches the ETag of the source object, then the source object is copied.	No
x-goog-copy-source-if-none-match	An ETag. If the ETag you specify does not match the Etag of the source object, then the object is copied.	No
x-goog-copy-source-if-modified-since	A date and time. If the date and time you specify is earlier than the Last-Modified date of the source object, then the object is copied.	No
x-goog-copy-source-if-unmodified-since	A date and time. If the date and time you specify is later than the Last-Modified date of the source object, then the object is copied.	No
x-goog-encryption-kms-key-name	The customer-managed encryption key to use to encrypt the copied object.	No

To copy an object encrypted by a customer-supplied encryption key, use the headers listed on the Encryption page in your request.

Request body elements

This request does not include an XML document in the request body.

Request syntax

The following syntax applies to PUT Object requests that use the x-goog- copy-source request header and the related conditional copy request headers.

PUT /<object> HTTP/1.1
Host: <bucket>.storage.googleapis.com
Date: <date>
Content-Length: <request body length>
Content-Type: <MIME type>
Authorization: <authentication string>
x-goog-copy-source: </bucket/object>
x-goog-copy-source-if-match: <ETag>
x-goog-copy-source-if-none-match: <ETag>
x-goog-copy-source-if-unmodified-since: <date>
x-goog-copy-source-if-modified-since: <date>
x-goog-metadata-directive: <COPY | REPLACE>

Response headers

The request can return a variety of response headers depending on the request headers you use.

Response body elements

The following response elements are returned when you use the x-goog-copy- source request header or any of the related conditional copy request headers.

Element	Description
CopyObjectResult	Container for copy information.
ETag	The ETag of the newly-copied object.
LastModified	The date and time that the source object was last modified prior to the current copy operation.

Example

The following sample uses the x-goog-copy-source request header to copy an object named paris.jpg from a bucket named travel-maps to a bucket named city-maps.

Request

PUT /paris.jpg HTTP/1.1
Host: city-maps.storage.googleapis.com
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:27:36 GMT
Content-Length: 0
x-goog-copy-source: travel-maps/paris.jpg
Authorization: Bearer ya29.AHES6ZRVmB7fkLtd1XTmq6mo0S1wqZZi3-Lh_s-6Uw7p8vtgSwg

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
ETag: "9930c6204b2f14e1a4496569dc200186"
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:27:37 GMT
Expires: Mon, 01 Jan 1990 00:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate
Content-Length: 175
Content-Type: text/html

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<CopyObjectResult>
  <LastModified>2010-06-17T16:18:08.291Z</LastModified>
  <ETag>"9930c6204b2f14e1a4496569dc200186"</ETag>
</CopyObjectResult>