Cloud Storage for Firebase allows you to quickly and easily download files from a Cloud Storage bucket provided and managed by Firebase.
Create a Reference
To download a file, first create a Cloud Storage reference to the file you want to download.
You can create a reference by appending child paths to the root of your
Cloud Storage bucket, or you can create a reference from an existing
gs://
or https://
URL referencing an object in Cloud Storage.
Web v8
// Create a reference with an initial file path and name var storage = firebase.storage(); var pathReference = storage.ref('images/stars.jpg'); // Create a reference from a Google Cloud Storage URI var gsReference = storage.refFromURL('gs://bucket/images/stars.jpg'); // Create a reference from an HTTPS URL // Note that in the URL, characters are URL escaped! var httpsReference = storage.refFromURL('https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/b/bucket/o/images%20stars.jpg');
Web v9
import { getStorage, ref } from "firebase/storage"; // Create a reference with an initial file path and name const storage = getStorage(); const pathReference = ref(storage, 'images/stars.jpg'); // Create a reference from a Google Cloud Storage URI const gsReference = ref(storage, 'gs://bucket/images/stars.jpg'); // Create a reference from an HTTPS URL // Note that in the URL, characters are URL escaped! const httpsReference = ref(storage, 'https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/b/bucket/o/images%20stars.jpg');
Download Data via URL
You can get the download URL for a file by calling the
getDownloadURL()
method on a Cloud Storage reference.
Web v8
storageRef.child('images/stars.jpg').getDownloadURL() .then((url) => { // `url` is the download URL for 'images/stars.jpg' // This can be downloaded directly: var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); xhr.responseType = 'blob'; xhr.onload = (event) => { var blob = xhr.response; }; xhr.open('GET', url); xhr.send(); // Or inserted into an <img> element var img = document.getElementById('myimg'); img.setAttribute('src', url); }) .catch((error) => { // Handle any errors });
Web v9
import { getStorage, ref, getDownloadURL } from "firebase/storage"; const storage = getStorage(); getDownloadURL(ref(storage, 'images/stars.jpg')) .then((url) => { // `url` is the download URL for 'images/stars.jpg' // This can be downloaded directly: const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); xhr.responseType = 'blob'; xhr.onload = (event) => { const blob = xhr.response; }; xhr.open('GET', url); xhr.send(); // Or inserted into an <img> element const img = document.getElementById('myimg'); img.setAttribute('src', url); }) .catch((error) => { // Handle any errors });
CORS Configuration
To download data directly in the browser, you must configure your
Cloud Storage bucket for cross-origin access (CORS). This can be done
with the gsutil
command line tool, which you can
install from here.
If you don't want any domain-based restrictions (the most common scenario),
copy this JSON to a file named cors.json
:
[ { "origin": ["*"], "method": ["GET"], "maxAgeSeconds": 3600 } ]
Run gsutil cors set cors.json gs://<your-cloud-storage-bucket>
to deploy
these restrictions.
For more information, refer to the Google Cloud Storage documentation.
Handle Errors
There are a number of reasons why errors may occur on download, including the file not existing, or the user not having permission to access the desired file. More information on errors can be found in the Handle Errors section of the docs.
Full Example
A full example of a download with error handling is shown below:
Web v8
// Create a reference to the file we want to download var starsRef = storageRef.child('images/stars.jpg'); // Get the download URL starsRef.getDownloadURL() .then((url) => { // Insert url into an <img> tag to "download" }) .catch((error) => { // A full list of error codes is available at // https://firebase.google.com/docs/storage/web/handle-errors switch (error.code) { case 'storage/object-not-found': // File doesn't exist break; case 'storage/unauthorized': // User doesn't have permission to access the object break; case 'storage/canceled': // User canceled the upload break; // ... case 'storage/unknown': // Unknown error occurred, inspect the server response break; } });
Web v9
// Create a reference to the file we want to download var starsRef = storageRef.child('images/stars.jpg'); // Get the download URL starsRef.getDownloadURL() .then((url) => { // Insert url into an <img> tag to "download" }) .catch((error) => { // A full list of error codes is available at // https://firebase.google.com/docs/storage/web/handle-errors switch (error.code) { case 'storage/object-not-found': // File doesn't exist break; case 'storage/unauthorized': // User doesn't have permission to access the object break; case 'storage/canceled': // User canceled the upload break; // ... case 'storage/unknown': // Unknown error occurred, inspect the server response break; } });
You can also get or update metadata for files that are stored in Cloud Storage.