How to delete file from the firebase using file url in node.js ?

Difficulty Level : Medium
Last Updated : 17 Dec, 2020

To delete a file from the firebase storage we need a reference to store the file in storage. As we only have the file URL we need to create a reference object of the file in firebase storage and then delete that file.

Deleting a file using the file URL can be done in two steps –

Get the reference to the storage using refFromUrl method from firebase.storage.
Deleting the file using the reference of the file in storage obtained from Step 1.

The method refFromUrl returns a reference to that file and can take two types of file URL as an input –

gs:// URL, for example, gs://bucket/files/image.png
Download URL taken from object metadata.

Example 1: Deleting a file from the given file URL using the refFromURL method.

Javascript

var fileUrl = 
'https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/b/bucket/o/images%20geeksforgeeks.jpg';
  
// Create a reference to the file to delete
var fileRef = storage.refFromURL(fileUrl);
  
console.log("File in database before delete exists : " 
        + fileRef.exists())
  
// Delete the file using the delete() method 
fileRef.delete().then(function () {
  
    // File deleted successfully
    console.log("File Deleted")
}).catch(function (error) {
    // Some Error occurred
});
  
console.log("File in database after delete exists : "
        + fileRef.exists())

Output:

File in database before delete exists : true
File Deleted
File in database after delete exists : false

Example 2: Deleting a file using bucket gs:// URL

Javascript

// gs Bucket URL
var fileUrl = 'gs://bucket/geeksforgeeks/image.png';
  
// Create a reference to the file to delete
var fileRef = storage.refFromURL(fileUrl);
  
console.log("File in database before delete exists : "
        + fileRef.exists())
  
// Delete the file using the delete() method 
fileRef.delete().then(function () {
  
    // File deleted successfully
    console.log("File Deleted")
}).catch(function (error) {
    // Some Error occurred
});
  
console.log("File in database after delete exists : "
        + fileRef.exists())

Output :

File in database before delete exists : true
File Deleted
File in database after delete exists : false

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