---
id: gsutil
version: "5.37"
license: Apache 2.0
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# gsutil — A command line tool for interacting with cloud storage services.

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 1.3M/mo

## What it is and what it does

gsutil is Google's official command-line interface for Google Cloud Storage, allowing developers and operators to manage cloud storage from the terminal. It handles the full lifecycle of bucket and object operations—creation, deletion, uploading, downloading, listing, and permission management—without requiring a graphical interface or custom scripts.

The tool integrates deeply with Google Cloud authentication and relies on 14 runtime dependencies to handle OAuth flows, HTTP communication, cryptography, and cloud API interactions. It's marked as Production/Stable and actively maintained, supporting modern Python versions from 3.9 through 3.14. Installation carries moderate friction due to its dependency chain, but the tool is widely used in cloud infrastructure automation, CI/CD pipelines, and manual storage administration.

Use it for:

- Automate bucket and object management in CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code workflows.
- Upload and download large datasets or application artifacts to/from Google Cloud Storage.
- Manage access control lists and permissions on buckets and objects from the command line.
- List and inspect bucket contents, metadata, and storage usage in scripts or manual operations.
- Migrate or sync data between local filesystems and Google Cloud Storage.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

gsutil is a command-line tool for managing Google Cloud Storage buckets and objects, supporting operations like creation, deletion, upload, download, listing, and ACL editing.

Yes, if you work with Google Cloud Storage. gsutil is the canonical tool for GCS management from the command line, actively maintained, production-stable, and carries no known vulnerabilities. The high install friction is justified by its comprehensive dependency chain for secure cloud authentication and API interaction. Not relevant if you don't use Google Cloud Storage.

## Install

pip install gsutil
uv add gsutil
poetry add gsutil

## Installing gsutil

Before you install: High install friction due to 14 runtime dependencies including cryptographic libraries (pyOpenSSL, google-auth, google-apitools) and OAuth plugins. Maintenance is active with recent releases, supporting Python 3.9 through 3.14.

License in practice: Apache 2.0 permissive license allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions, typical for Google-backed infrastructure tools.

Quickstart:

pip install gsutil
gsutil ls gs://bucket-name
gsutil cp local-file gs://bucket-name/

Requires Python 3.9 or later; Google Cloud credentials must be configured (typically via gcloud auth or environment variables) for authentication to work.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the 14 dependencies introduce security surface beyond what's covered by the zero known vulnerabilities in OSV.
- Performance characteristics when handling large-scale object operations or transfers.
- Compatibility with non-Google cloud storage services or S3-like APIs.

## Package facts

- License: Apache 2.0 (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: high
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 1.3M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

google cloud storage cli, gcs command line tool, cloud storage bucket management, gsutil google cloud, cloud storage upload download, gcs object management, google storage command line, cloud-storage, google-cloud, cli-tool

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