Cloud Storage for Firebase stores your data in a Google Cloud Storage bucket — an exabyte scale object storage solution with high availability and global redundancy. The Firebase Admin SDK allows you to directly access your Cloud Storage buckets from privileged environments. Then you can use Google Cloud Storage APIs to manipulate the objects stored in the buckets.
The Admin SDK also lets you to create shareable URLs so users can download objects in your buckets.
Use a default bucket
You can specify a default bucket name when initializing the Admin SDK. Then you
can retrieve an authenticated reference to this bucket. The bucket name must
not contain gs://
or any other protocol prefixes. For example, if the bucket
URL displayed in the
Firebase console
is gs://bucket-name.appspot.com
, pass the string bucket-name.appspot.com
to
the Admin SDK.
Node.js
const { initializeApp, cert } = require('firebase-admin/app');
const { getStorage } = require('firebase-admin/storage');
const serviceAccount = require('./path/to/serviceAccountKey.json');
initializeApp({
credential: cert(serviceAccount),
storageBucket: '<BUCKET_NAME>.appspot.com'
});
const bucket = getStorage().bucket();
// 'bucket' is an object defined in the @google-cloud/storage library.
// See https://googlecloudplatform.github.io/google-cloud-node/#/docs/storage/latest/storage/bucket
// for more details.
Java
FileInputStream serviceAccount = new FileInputStream("path/to/serviceAccountKey.json");
FirebaseOptions options = FirebaseOptions.builder()
.setCredentials(GoogleCredentials.fromStream(serviceAccount))
.setStorageBucket("<BUCKET_NAME>.appspot.com")
.build();
FirebaseApp.initializeApp(options);
Bucket bucket = StorageClient.getInstance().bucket();
// 'bucket' is an object defined in the google-cloud-storage Java library.
// See http://googlecloudplatform.github.io/google-cloud-java/latest/apidocs/com/google/cloud/storage/Bucket.html
// for more details.
Python
import firebase_admin
from firebase_admin import credentials
from firebase_admin import storage
cred = credentials.Certificate('path/to/serviceAccountKey.json')
firebase_admin.initialize_app(cred, {
'storageBucket': '<BUCKET_NAME>.appspot.com'
})
bucket = storage.bucket()
# 'bucket' is an object defined in the google-cloud-storage Python library.
# See https://googlecloudplatform.github.io/google-cloud-python/latest/storage/buckets.html
# for more details.
Go
import (
"context"
"log"
firebase "firebase.google.com/go/v4"
"firebase.google.com/go/v4/auth"
"google.golang.org/api/option"
)
config := &firebase.Config{
StorageBucket: "<BUCKET_NAME>.appspot.com",
}
opt := option.WithCredentialsFile("path/to/serviceAccountKey.json")
app, err := firebase.NewApp(context.Background(), config, opt)
if err != nil {
log.Fatalln(err)
}
client, err := app.Storage(context.Background())
if err != nil {
log.Fatalln(err)
}
bucket, err := client.DefaultBucket()
if err != nil {
log.Fatalln(err)
}
// 'bucket' is an object defined in the cloud.google.com/go/storage package.
// See https://godoc.org/cloud.google.com/go/storage#BucketHandle
// for more details.
You can use the bucket references returned by the Admin SDK in conjunction with the official Google Cloud Storage client libraries to upload, download, and modify content in the buckets associated with your Firebase projects. Note that you do not have to authenticate Google Cloud Storage libraries when using the Firebase Admin SDK. The bucket references returned by the Admin SDK are already authenticated with the credentials used to initialize your Firebase app.
Use custom buckets
If you want to use a Cloud Storage bucket other than the default provided above, or use multiple Cloud Storage buckets in a single app, you can retrieve a reference to a custom bucket as shown below:
Node.js
const bucket = getStorage().bucket('my-custom-bucket');
Java
Bucket bucket = StorageClient.getInstance().bucket("my-custom-bucket");
Python
bucket = storage.bucket('my-custom-bucket')
Go
bucket, err := client.Bucket("my-custom-bucket")
Use a custom Firebase app
If you are building a more complicated application that interacts with multiple Firebase apps, you can access the Cloud Storage buckets associated with a specific Firebase app as follows:
Node.js
const bucket = getStorage(customApp).bucket();
Java
Bucket bucket = StorageClient.getInstance(customApp).bucket();
Python
bucket = storage.bucket(app=custom_app)
Go
otherClient, err := otherApp.Storage(context.Background())
bucket, err := otherClient.Bucket("other-app-bucket")
Get a shareable download URL
You can use the Admin SDK to generate a non-expiring download URL for files stored in your buckets. Anyone with this URL can permanently access the file.
Node.js
const { getStorage, getDownloadURL } = require('firebase-admin/storage');
const fileRef = getStorage().bucket('my-bucket').file('my-file');
const downloadURL= await getDownloadURL(fileRef);
Google Cloud Storage client libraries
The Firebase Admin SDKs depend on the Google Cloud Storage client libraries to provide Cloud Storage access. The bucket references returned by the Admin SDK are objects defined in these libraries. Refer to the documentation and API references of the Google Cloud Storage client libraries to learn how to use the returned bucket references in use cases like file upload and download.