Delete buckets
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This page shows you how to delete Cloud Storage buckets.
If you delete a bucket that has soft delete enabled,
you can restore the bucket or individual objects from the bucket during the
retention duration specified in the soft delete policy. Managed folders
cannot be recovered, even if the bucket has soft delete enabled.
Before you begin
In order to get the required permissions for deleting a Cloud Storage
bucket, ask your administrator to grant you the Storage Admin
(roles/storage.admin) IAM role on the bucket.
This predefined role contains the permissions required to delete a bucket.
To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the
Required permissions section:
Required permissions
storage.buckets.delete
storage.buckets.list
This permission is only required when deleting buckets using the
Google Cloud console.
storage.objects.delete
This permission is only required if objects exist within the bucket you
want to delete.
storage.objects.list
This permission is only required for deleting buckets using the
Google Cloud console or the Google Cloud CLI.
When you delete a bucket using the Google Cloud console, resources within
the bucket are also deleted, such as objects, managed folders, and caches
created with Rapid Cache.
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Cloud Storage Buckets page.
Select the checkbox of the bucket you want to delete.
Click Delete.
In the overlay window that appears, confirm you want to delete the
bucket and its contents.
Click Delete.
To learn how to get detailed error information about failed Cloud Storage
operations in the Google Cloud console, see
Troubleshooting.
Command line
To delete the bucket, along with all the contents within the bucket,
use the Google Cloud CLI command gcloud storage rm with
the --recursive flag:
gcloud storage rm --recursive gs://BUCKET_NAME
Where BUCKET_NAME is the name of the bucket to
delete. For example, my-bucket.
If successful, the response looks like the following example:
Removing gs://my-bucket/...
If you want to avoid accidentally deleting objects or managed folders,
use the gcloud storage buckets delete command, which only deletes a
bucket if the bucket is empty.
usingGoogle.Cloud.Storage.V1;usingSystem;publicclassDeleteBucketSample{publicvoidDeleteBucket(stringbucketName="your-unique-bucket-name"){varstorage=StorageClient.Create();storage.DeleteBucket(bucketName);Console.WriteLine($"The bucket {bucketName} was deleted.");}}
importcom.google.cloud.storage.Bucket;importcom.google.cloud.storage.Storage;importcom.google.cloud.storage.StorageOptions;publicclassDeleteBucket{publicstaticvoiddeleteBucket(StringprojectId,StringbucketName){// The ID of your GCP project// String projectId = "your-project-id";// The ID of the bucket to delete// String bucketName = "your-unique-bucket-name";Storagestorage=StorageOptions.newBuilder().setProjectId(projectId).build().getService();Bucketbucket=storage.get(bucketName);bucket.delete();System.out.println("Bucket "+bucket.getName()+" was deleted");}}
/** * TODO(developer): Uncomment the following lines before running the sample. */// The ID of your GCS bucket// const bucketName = 'your-unique-bucket-name';// Imports the Google Cloud client libraryconst{Storage}=require('@google-cloud/storage');// Creates a clientconststorage=newStorage();asyncfunctiondeleteBucket(){awaitstorage.bucket(bucketName).delete();console.log(`Bucket ${bucketName} deleted`);}deleteBucket().catch(console.error);
fromgoogle.cloudimportstoragedefdelete_bucket(bucket_name):"""Deletes a bucket. The bucket must be empty."""# bucket_name = "your-bucket-name"storage_client=storage.Client()bucket=storage_client.get_bucket(bucket_name)bucket.delete()print(f"Bucket {bucket.name} deleted")
defdelete_bucketbucket_name:# The ID of your GCS bucket# bucket_name = "your-unique-bucket-name"require"google/cloud/storage"storage=Google::Cloud::Storage.newbucket=storage.bucketbucket_name,skip_lookup:truebucket.deleteputs"Deleted bucket: #{bucket.name}"end
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2026-06-09 UTC."],[],[]]