Install the Google Cloud CLI

This quickstart guides you through installing and initializing the Google Cloud CLI and running a few core gcloud CLI commands.

To follow step-by-step guidance for this task directly in the Google Cloud console, click Guide me:

Guide me

Before you begin

  1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

  2. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

    Go to project selector

  3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

  4. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

    Go to project selector

  5. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

When you finish the tasks that are described in this document, you can avoid continued billing by deleting the resources that you created. For more information, see Clean up.

Installing the latest gcloud CLI version (500.0.0)

Linux
  1. Confirm that you have a supported version of Python. The Google Cloud CLI requires Python 3.8 to 3.13. Note that the x86_64 Linux package includes a bundled Python interpreter that will be preferred by default. For information on how to choose and configure your Python interpreter, see gcloud topic startup.
  2. Download one of the following:
    Platform Package name Size SHA256 Checksum
    Linux 64-bit

    (x86_64)

    		 google-cloud-cli-linux-x86_64.tar.gz 131.5 MB 00de87f6194c5e6a589717b9ca59d495c94b09d78abff075b1a430090ca1b955
    Linux 64-bit

    (Arm)

    		 google-cloud-cli-linux-arm.tar.gz 53.7 MB 020c5914fa78c9264dc383bfe4fce30fcb344784cc993c151d9937f93b56a6f5
    Linux 32-bit

    (x86)

    		 google-cloud-cli-linux-x86.tar.gz 53.7 MB 5c8003ce8538d8af1df644d6f5212f03f4bfea000f01ac1a5a38533d6594ae9d

    To download the Linux archive file, run the following command: 

    curl -O https://dl.google.com/dl/cloudsdk/channels/rapid/downloads/google-cloud-cli-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

    Refer to the table above and replace google-cloud-cli-linux-x86_64.tar.gz with the *.tar.gz package name that applies to your configuration.

  3. To extract the contents of the file to your file system (preferably to your home directory), run the following command: 
    tar -xf google-cloud-cli-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
     Optional: To replace an existing installation, remove the existing google-cloud-sdk directory and then extract the archive to the same location.
  4. Add the gcloud CLI to your path. Run the installation script from the root of the folder you extracted to using the following command: 
    ./google-cloud-sdk/install.sh
     This can also be done non-interactively (for example, using a script) and by providing preferences as flags. To view the available flags, run: 
    ./google-cloud-sdk/install.sh --help
     Optional:
    • To send anonymous usage statistics to help improve the gcloud CLI, answer Y when prompted.
    • To add the gcloud CLI to your PATH and enable command completion, answer Y when prompted.
  5. Open a new terminal so that the changes take effect.
  6. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run gcloud init: 
    7. ./google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud init
  7. Optional: Install additional components using the component manager.
Debian/Ubuntu

Package contents

The gcloud CLI is available in package format for installation on Debian and Ubuntu systems. This package contains the gcloud, gcloud alpha, gcloud beta, gsutil, and bq commands only. It doesn't include kubectl or the App Engine extensions required to deploy an application using gcloud commands. If you want these components, you must install them separately.

Before you begin

Before you install the gcloud CLI, make sure that your operating system meets the following requirements:

  • It is an Ubuntu release that hasn't reached end-of-life or a Debian stable release that hasn't reached end-of-life
  • It has recently updated its packages: 
    sudo apt-get update
  • It has apt-transport-https and curl installed: 
    sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https ca-certificates gnupg curl
Installation
  1. Import the Google Cloud public key.

    • For newer distributions (Debian 9+ or Ubuntu 18.04+) run the following command:

      curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg
    • For older distributions, run the following command: 
      curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg add -

    • If your distribution's apt-key command doesn't support the --keyring argument, run the following command:

      curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

    • If you can't get latest updates due to an expired key, obtain the latest apt-get.gpg key file.

  2. Add the gcloud CLI distribution URI as a package source.
    • For newer distributions (Debian 9+ or Ubuntu 18.04+), run the following command: 
      echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg] https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-cloud-sdk.list

    • For older distributions that don't support the signed-by option, run the following command:

      echo "deb https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-cloud-sdk.list
  3. Update and install the gcloud CLI: 
    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install google-cloud-cli
     For additional apt-get options, such as disabling prompts or dry runs, refer to the apt-get man pages.

    Docker Tip: If installing the gcloud CLI inside a Docker image, use a single RUN step instead:

    RUN echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg] https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk main" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-cloud-sdk.list && curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg && apt-get update -y && apt-get install google-cloud-cli -y
    For older base images that do not support the gpg --dearmor command: 
    RUN echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg] https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk main" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-cloud-sdk.list && curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | apt-key --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg  add - && apt-get update -y && apt-get install google-cloud-cli -y
  4. (Optional) Install any of the following additional components:
    • google-cloud-cli
    • google-cloud-cli-anthos-auth
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-go
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-grpc
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-java
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-python
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-python-extras
    • google-cloud-cli-bigtable-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-cbt
    • google-cloud-cli-cloud-build-local
    • google-cloud-cli-cloud-run-proxy
    • google-cloud-cli-config-connector
    • google-cloud-cli-datastore-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-firestore-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-gke-gcloud-auth-plugin
    • google-cloud-cli-kpt
    • google-cloud-cli-kubectl-oidc
    • google-cloud-cli-local-extract
    • google-cloud-cli-minikube
    • google-cloud-cli-nomos
    • google-cloud-cli-pubsub-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-skaffold
    • google-cloud-cli-spanner-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-terraform-validator
    • google-cloud-cli-tests
    • kubectl

    For example, the google-cloud-cli-app-engine-java component can be installed as follows: 

    sudo apt-get install google-cloud-cli-app-engine-java
  5. Run gcloud init to get started: 
    gcloud init

Downgrading gcloud CLI versions

To revert to a specific version of the gcloud CLI, where VERSION is of the form 123.0.0, run the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install google-cloud-cli=123.0.0-0

The ten most recent releases are always available in the repo.

NOTE: For releases prior to 371.0.0, the package name is google-cloud-sdk

Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS

Package contents

The gcloud CLI is available in package format for installation on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, 8, and 9; Fedora 33 and 34; and CentOS 7 and 8 systems. This package contains the gcloud, gcloud alpha, gcloud beta, gsutil, and bq commands only. It doesn't include kubectl or the App Engine extensions required to deploy an application using gcloud commands, which can be installed separately as described later in this section.

Installation
  1. Update DNF with gcloud CLI repository information. The following sample command is for a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9-compatible installation, but make sure that you update the settings as needed for your configuration: 
    sudo tee -a /etc/yum.repos.d/google-cloud-sdk.repo << EOM
[google-cloud-cli]
name=Google Cloud CLI
baseurl=https://packages.cloud.google.com/yum/repos/cloud-sdk-el9-x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
repo_gpgcheck=0
gpgkey=https://packages.cloud.google.com/yum/doc/rpm-package-key.gpg
EOM
  2. If you're installing on Fedora 34 or 35, install libxcrypt-compat.x86_64. 
    sudo dnf install libxcrypt-compat.x86_64
  3. Install the gcloud CLI: 
    sudo dnf install google-cloud-cli
  4. (Optional) Install any of the following additional components:
    • google-cloud-cli
    • google-cloud-cli-anthos-auth
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-go
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-grpc
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-java
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-python
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-python-extras
    • google-cloud-cli-bigtable-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-cbt
    • google-cloud-cli-cloud-build-local
    • google-cloud-cli-cloud-run-proxy
    • google-cloud-cli-config-connector
    • google-cloud-cli-datastore-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-firestore-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-gke-gcloud-auth-plugin
    • google-cloud-cli-kpt
    • google-cloud-cli-kubectl-oidc
    • google-cloud-cli-local-extract
    • google-cloud-cli-minikube
    • google-cloud-cli-nomos
    • google-cloud-cli-pubsub-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-skaffold
    • google-cloud-cli-spanner-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-terraform-validator
    • google-cloud-cli-tests
    • kubectl

    For example, the google-cloud-cli-app-engine-java component can be installed as follows: 

    sudo dnf install google-cloud-cli-app-engine-java
  5. Run gcloud init to get started: 
    gcloud init

Downgrading gcloud CLI versions

If you'd like to revert to a specific version of the gcloud CLI, where VERSION is of the form 123.0.0, run: sudo dnf downgrade google-cloud-cli-VERSION The ten most recent releases will always be available in the repository. NOTE: For releases prior to 371.0.0, the package name is google-cloud-sdk

macOS
  1. Confirm that you have a supported version of Python:
    • To check your current Python version, run python3 -V or python -V. Supported versions are Python 3.8 to 3.13.
    • The main install script offers to install CPython's Python 3.11.
    • Otherwise, to install a supported Python version, please visit the Python.org Python Releases for macOS.
    • If you have multiple Python interpreters installed on your machine, set the CLOUDSDK_PYTHON environment variable within your shell to point to the path of your preferred interpreter.
    • For more information on how to choose and configure your Python interpreter, see gcloud topic startup.
  2. Download one of the following:

    3. Platform Package Size SHA256 Checksum
    macOS 64-bit

    (x86_64)

    		 google-cloud-cli-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz 53.8 MB 41dcb6ef75245ba597ba32ecb950b7b28696e32d83fe404c41c92e5b224fcf6a
    macOS 64-bit

    (ARM64, Apple M1 silicon)

    		 google-cloud-cli-darwin-arm.tar.gz 53.7 MB 91bb5dddc9fe43d99b48e0abccd75e2277723978e0089bd217b20369be7037d7
    macOS 32-bit

    (x86)

    		 google-cloud-cli-darwin-x86.tar.gz 52.4 MB 56d2ccbed2cc3f7c2429e2f8608094f85a18403be7edf7869b14d3c1934424ba
    1. Extract the archive to any location on your file system (preferably your Home directory). On macOS, this can be achieved by opening the downloaded .tar.gz archive file in the preferred location.

      To replace an existing installation, remove the existing google-cloud-sdk directory and then extract the archive to the same location.

    2. (Optional) Use the install script to add gcloud CLI tools to your PATH.You can also opt-in to command-completion for your shell, usage statistics collection, and install Python 3.11.

      Run the script (from the root of the folder you extracted in the last step) using this command: 

      ./google-cloud-sdk/install.sh
       This can also be done non-interactively (for example, using a script) by providing preferences as flags. To describe the available flags, run: 
      ./google-cloud-sdk/install.sh --help
       To run the install script with screen reader mode on: 
      ./google-cloud-sdk/install.sh --screen-reader=true
       Open a new terminal so that the changes take effect.
    3. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run gcloud init: 
      4. ./google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud init
    4. Optional. Install additional components using the component manager.
Windows
    The Google Cloud CLI works on Windows 8.1 and later and Windows Server 2012 and later.

  1. Download the Google Cloud CLI installer.

    Alternatively, open a PowerShell terminal and run the following PowerShell commands: 

    (New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadFile("https://dl.google.com/dl/cloudsdk/channels/rapid/GoogleCloudSDKInstaller.exe", "$env:Temp\GoogleCloudSDKInstaller.exe")

& $env:Temp\GoogleCloudSDKInstaller.exe

  2. Launch the installer and follow the prompts. The installer is signed by Google LLC.

    If you're using a screen reader, check the Turn on screen reader mode checkbox. This option configures gcloud to use status trackers instead of unicode spinners, display progress as a percentage, and flatten tables. For more information, see the Accessibility features guide.

  3. Google Cloud CLI requires Python; supported versions are Python 3.8 to 3.13. By default, the Windows version of Google Cloud CLI comes bundled with Python 3. To use Google Cloud CLI your operating system must be able to run a supported version of Python.

    The installer installs all necessary dependencies, including the needed Python version. While Google Cloud CLI installs and manages Python 3 by default, you can use an existing Python installation if necessary by unchecking the option to Install Bundled Python. See gcloud topic startup to learn how to use an existing Python installation.

  4. After installation is complete, the installer gives you the option to create Start Menu and Desktop shortcuts, start the Google Cloud CLI shell, and configure the gcloud CLI. Make sure that you leave the options to start the shell and configure your installation selected. The installer starts a terminal window and runs the gcloud init command.

  5. The default installation doesn't include the App Engine extensions required to deploy an application using gcloud commands. These components can be installed using the gcloud CLI component manager.
Troubleshooting tips:
  • If your installation is unsuccessful due to the find command not being recognized, ensure your PATH environment variable is set to include the folder containing find. Usually, this is C:\WINDOWS\system32;.
  • If you uninstalled the gcloud CLI, you must reboot your system before installing the gcloud CLI again.
  • If unzipping fails, run the installer as an administrator.
Chromebook
  1. Enable the Linux feature on your Chromebook. Installing the Google Cloud CLI on Chromebook requires this feature.
  2. Add the gcloud CLI distribution URI as a package source: 
    echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg] https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-cloud-sdk.list
  3. Import the Google Cloud public key: 
    curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.gpg add -
  4. Update and install the gcloud CLI: 
    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install google-cloud-cli
  5. (Optional) Install any of the following additional components:
    • google-cloud-cli
    • google-cloud-cli-anthos-auth
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-go
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-grpc
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-java
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-python
    • google-cloud-cli-app-engine-python-extras
    • google-cloud-cli-bigtable-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-cbt
    • google-cloud-cli-cloud-build-local
    • google-cloud-cli-cloud-run-proxy
    • google-cloud-cli-config-connector
    • google-cloud-cli-datastore-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-firestore-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-gke-gcloud-auth-plugin
    • google-cloud-cli-kpt
    • google-cloud-cli-kubectl-oidc
    • google-cloud-cli-local-extract
    • google-cloud-cli-minikube
    • google-cloud-cli-nomos
    • google-cloud-cli-pubsub-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-skaffold
    • google-cloud-cli-spanner-emulator
    • google-cloud-cli-terraform-validator
    • google-cloud-cli-tests
    • kubectl

    For example, the google-cloud-cli-app-engine-java component can be installed as follows: 

    sudo apt-get install google-cloud-cli-app-engine-java
  6. Run gcloud init to get started: 
    gcloud init

Downgrading gcloud CLI versions

To revert to a specific version of the gcloud CLI, where VERSION is of the form 123.0.0, run the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install google-cloud-cli=123.0.0-0

The ten most recent releases are always available in the repo.

NOTE: For releases prior to 371.0.0, the package name is google-cloud-sdk

Optional: Install the latest Cloud Client Libraries

You can download Cloud Client Libraries for supported languages.

Initializing the gcloud CLI

Use the gcloud init command to perform several common gcloud CLI setup tasks. These include authorizing the gcloud CLI to access Google Cloud using your user account credentials and setting up the default configuration.

  1. Initialize the gcloud CLI:

    gcloud init

  2. Accept the option to sign in using your Google user account:

    To continue, you must log in. Would you like to log in (Y/n)? Y

  3. In your browser, sign in to your Google user account when prompted and click Allow to grant permission to access Google Cloud resources.

  4. At the command prompt, select a Google Cloud project from the list of projects where you have Owner, Editor or Viewer permissions:

    Pick cloud project to use:
 [1] [my-project-1]
 [2] [my-project-2]
 ...
 Please enter your numeric choice:

    If you only have one project, gcloud init selects it for you.

    If you have access to more than 200 projects, you will be prompted to enter a project ID, create a new project, or list projects.

    This account has a lot of projects! Listing them all can take a while.
 [1] Enter a project ID
 [2] Create a new project
 [3] List projects
Please enter your numeric choice:

  5. If you have the Compute Engine API enabled, gcloud init lets you to choose a default Compute Engine zone:

    Which compute zone would you like to use as project default?
 [1] [asia-east1-a]
 [2] [asia-east1-b]
 ...
 [14] Do not use default zone
 Please enter your numeric choice:

    gcloud init confirms that you have complete the setup steps successfully:

    Run `gcloud help config` to learn how to change individual settings

This gcloud configuration is called [default]. You can create additional configurations if you work with multiple accounts and/or projects.
Run `gcloud topic configurations` to learn more.

Some things to try next:

* Run `gcloud --help` to see the Cloud Platform services you can interact with. And run `gcloud help COMMAND` to get help on any gcloud command.
* Run `gcloud topic --help` to learn about advanced features of the SDK like arg files and output formatting
* Run `gcloud cheat-sheet` to see a roster of go-to `gcloud` commands.

  6. (Optional) To improve the screen reader experience, enable the accessibility/screen_reader property:

    gcloud config set accessibility/screen_reader true

    For more details about the accessibility features that come with the gcloud CLI, see Enabling accessibility features guide.

Running core commands

Run core commands to view information about your gcloud CLI installation:

  1. List accounts whose credentials are stored on the local system:

    gcloud auth list

    The gcloud CLI displays a list of credentialed accounts:

    Credentialed Accounts
ACTIVE             ACCOUNT
*                  [email protected]
                   [email protected]

  2. List the properties in your active gcloud CLI configuration:

    gcloud config list

    The gcloud CLI displays the list of properties:

    [core]
account = [email protected]
disable_usage_reporting = False
project = example-project

  3. View information about your gcloud CLI installation and the active configuration:

    gcloud info

    The gcloud CLI displays a summary of information about your installation. This includes information about your system, the installed components, the active user account and current project, and the properties in the active configuration.

  4. View information about gcloud commands and other topics:

    gcloud help

    For example, to view the help for gcloud compute instances create:

    gcloud help compute instances create

    The gcloud CLI displays a help topic that contains a description of the command, a list of command flags and arguments, and examples of how to use the command.

Clean up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used on this page, follow these steps.

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Manage resources page.

    Go to Manage resources

  2. In the project list, select the project that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
  3. In the dialog, type the project ID, and then click Shut down to delete the project.

What's next

  • Read the gcloud CLI guide for an overview of the gcloud CLI, including a quick introduction to key concepts, command conventions, and helpful tips.
  • Read the gcloud CLI reference guide for detailed pages on each The gcloud CLI command, including descriptions, flags, and examples, that you can use to perform a variety of tasks on Google Cloud.
  • Refer to the gcloud CLI cheat sheet for a list of commonly used commands and key concepts.
  • Install additional components such as the App Engine emulators or kubectl using the gcloud CLI component manager.