Create a Cloud Storage reference on Web

Your files are stored in a Cloud Storage bucket. The files in this bucket are presented in a hierarchical structure, just like the file system on your local hard disk, or the data in the Firebase Realtime Database . By creating a reference to a file, your app gains access to it. These references can then be used to upload or download data, get or update metadata or delete the file. A reference can either point to a specific file or to a higher level node in the hierarchy.

If you've used the Firebase Realtime Database , these paths should seem very familiar to you. However, your file data is stored in Cloud Storage , notin the Realtime Database .

Create a Reference

In order to upload or download files, delete files, or get or update metadata, you must create a reference to the file you want to operate on. A reference can be thought of as a pointer to a file in the cloud. References are lightweight, so you can create as many as you need, and they are also reusable for multiple operations.

To create a reference, get an instance of the Storage service using getStorage() then call ref() with the service as an argument. This reference points to the root of your Cloud Storage bucket.

 import 
  
 { 
  
 getStorage 
 , 
  
 ref 
  
 } 
  
 from 
  
 "firebase/storage" 
 ; 
 // Get a reference to the storage service, which is used to create references in your storage bucket 
 const 
  
 storage 
  
 = 
  
 getStorage 
 (); 
 // Create a storage reference from our storage service 
 const 
  
 storageRef 
  
 = 
  
 ref 
 ( 
 storage 
 ); 
 
  storage_create_ref 
 . 
 js 
 
 

 // Get a reference to the storage service, which is used to create references in your storage bucket 
 var 
  
 storage 
  
 = 
  
 firebase 
 . 
 storage 
 (); 
 // Create a storage reference from our storage service 
 var 
  
 storageRef 
  
 = 
  
 storage 
 . 
 ref 
 (); 
 
  create 
 - 
 reference 
 . 
 js 
 
 

You can create a reference to a location lower in the tree, say 'images/space.jpg' by passing in this path as a second argument when calling ref() .

 import 
  
 { 
  
 getStorage 
 , 
  
 ref 
  
 } 
  
 from 
  
 "firebase/storage" 
 ; 
 const 
  
 storage 
  
 = 
  
 getStorage 
 (); 
 // Create a child reference 
 const 
  
 imagesRef 
  
 = 
  
 ref 
 ( 
 storage 
 , 
  
 'images' 
 ); 
 // imagesRef now points to 'images' 
 // Child references can also take paths delimited by '/' 
 const 
  
 spaceRef 
  
 = 
  
 ref 
 ( 
 storage 
 , 
  
 'images/space.jpg' 
 ); 
 // spaceRef now points to "images/space.jpg" 
 // imagesRef still points to "images" 
 storage_create_ref_child.js