Delete objects

This page shows you how to delete objects from your buckets in Cloud Storage. For an overview of object deletion methods, see About object deletion.

Required roles

To get the permissions that you need to delete objects, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles on the bucket that contains the objects you want to delete:

Delete objects using Google Cloud CLI or REST APIs: Storage Object User (roles/storage.objectUser)
Delete objects using the Google Cloud console: Storage Admin (roles/storage.admin)
Alternatively, to delete objects using the Google Cloud console: Viewer (roles/viewer) and Storage Object User (roles/storage.objectUser)

For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

These predefined roles contain the permissions required to delete objects. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissions section:

Required permissions

The following permissions are required to delete objects:

Delete objects: storage.objects.delete
List objects using the Google Cloud console, or using the --recursive flag or wildcards in Google Cloud CLI: storage.objects.list
List buckets using the Google Cloud console: storage.buckets.list

You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles.

Delete a single object

This section shows how to delete one object at a time.

Complete the following steps to delete a single object:

Console

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Cloud Storage Buckets page.

Go to Buckets
In the list of buckets, click the name of the bucket that contains the objects you want to delete.

The Bucket details page opens, with the Objects tab selected.
Navigate to the object, which may be located in a folder.
Select the checkbox for the object you want to delete.
Click Delete, and then click Delete in the dialog that appears.

Command line

Use the Google Cloud CLI command gcloud storage rm:

gcloud storage rm gs://BUCKET_NAME/OBJECT_NAME

Where:

BUCKET_NAME is the name of the bucket containing the object you want to delete. For example, my-bucket.
OBJECT_NAME is the name of the object you want to delete. For example, pets/dog.png.

If successful, the response is similar to the following example:

Removing objects:
Removing gs://example-bucket/file.txt...
  Completed 1/1

Client libraries

C++

For more information, see the Cloud Storage C++ API reference documentation.

To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

namespace gcs = ::google::cloud::storage;
[](gcs::Client client, std::string const& bucket_name,
   std::string const& object_name) {
  google::cloud::Status status =
      client.DeleteObject(bucket_name, object_name);

  if (!status.ok()) throw std::runtime_error(status.message());
  std::cout << "Deleted " << object_name << " in bucket " << bucket_name
            << "\n";
}

C#

For more information, see the Cloud Storage C# API reference documentation.

To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.


using Google.Cloud.Storage.V1;
using System;

public class DeleteFileSample
{
    public void DeleteFile(
        string bucketName = "your-unique-bucket-name",
        string objectName = "your-object-name")
    {
        var storage = StorageClient.Create();
        storage.DeleteObject(bucketName, objectName);
        Console.WriteLine($"Deleted {objectName}.");
    }
}

Go

For more information, see the Cloud Storage Go API reference documentation.

To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"time"

	"cloud.google.com/go/storage"
)

// deleteFile removes specified object.
func deleteFile(w io.Writer, bucket, object string) error {
	// bucket := "bucket-name"
	// object := "object-name"
	ctx := context.Background()
	client, err := storage.NewClient(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("storage.NewClient: %w", err)
	}
	defer client.Close()

	ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(ctx, time.Second*10)
	defer cancel()

	o := client.Bucket(bucket).Object(object)

	// Optional: set a generation-match precondition to avoid potential race
	// conditions and data corruptions. The request to delete the file is aborted
	// if the object's generation number does not match your precondition.
	attrs, err := o.Attrs(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("object.Attrs: %w", err)
	}
	o = o.If(storage.Conditions{GenerationMatch: attrs.Generation})

	if err := o.Delete(ctx); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("Object(%q).Delete: %w", object, err)
	}
	fmt.Fprintf(w, "Blob %v deleted.\n", object)
	return nil
}

Java

For more information, see the Cloud Storage Java API reference documentation.

To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

import com.google.cloud.storage.Blob;
import com.google.cloud.storage.BlobId;
import com.google.cloud.storage.Storage;
import com.google.cloud.storage.StorageOptions;

public class DeleteObject {
  public static void deleteObject(String projectId, String bucketName, String objectName) {
    // The ID of your GCP project
    // String projectId = "your-project-id";

    // The ID of your GCS bucket
    // String bucketName = "your-unique-bucket-name";

    // The ID of your GCS object
    // String objectName = "your-object-name";

    Storage storage = StorageOptions.newBuilder().setProjectId(projectId).build().getService();
    Blob blob = storage.get(bucketName, objectName);
    if (blob == null) {
      System.out.println("The object " + objectName + " wasn't found in " + bucketName);
      return;
    }
    BlobId idWithGeneration = blob.getBlobId();
    // Deletes the blob specified by its id. When the generation is present and non-null it will be
    // specified in the request.
    // If versioning is enabled on the bucket and the generation is present in the delete request,
    // only the version of the object with the matching generation will be deleted.
    // If instead you want to delete the current version, the generation should be dropped by
    // performing the following.
    // BlobId idWithoutGeneration =
    //    BlobId.of(idWithGeneration.getBucket(), idWithGeneration.getName());
    // storage.delete(idWithoutGeneration);
    storage.delete(idWithGeneration);

    System.out.println("Object " + objectName + " was permanently deleted from " + bucketName);
  }
}

Node.js

For more information, see the Cloud Storage Node.js API reference documentation.

To authenticate to Cloud Storage, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

/**
 * TODO(developer): Uncomment the following lines before running the sample.
 */
// The ID of your GCS bucket
// const bucketName = 'your-unique-bucket-name';

// The ID of your GCS file
// const fileName = 'your-file-name';

// Imports the Google Cloud client library
const