Connect Google Cloud Storage

quickS3 connects to Cloud Storage through its S3-compatible XML API. That uses an HMAC key, a pair that looks like an S3 access key, rather than a service-account JSON file.

1. Create a service account and HMAC key

1. In the Google Cloud console, create a service account just for quickS3.
2. On each bucket your team will use, give that service account a Cloud Storage role. Storage Object User lets it read, upload, and delete files. Storage Object Viewer is enough for read-only.
3. Open Cloud Storage → Settings → Interoperability, and under Service account HMAC, create a key for that service account.
4. Copy the Access key and Secret. Google only shows the secret once.

A new HMAC key can take up to a minute to start working. If your first test fails with an authentication error, wait a minute and try again.

2. Add the connection

1. In quickS3, open Connections, select New connection, and pick Google Cloud Storage.
2. Enter a Name.
3. In Bucket scopes, type your bucket names, separated by commas.
4. Paste the HMAC access key (it starts with GOOG) into Access Key, and the secret into Secret.
5. Keep CORS updates on and select Connect provider.

There’s no endpoint or region to fill in. quickS3 always uses https://storage.googleapis.com.

Then select Test connection. You want Connection verified with “CORS allows direct uploads”.

If uploads are blocked by CORS

For quickS3 to set CORS for you, the service account needs permission to update bucket settings, such as the Storage Admin role on the bucket. If you’d rather not grant that, set the rule yourself. Save this as cors.json:

[
  {
    "origin": ["https://quicks3.com"],
    "method": ["GET", "HEAD", "PUT"],
    "responseHeader": ["Content-Type", "ETag"],
    "maxAgeSeconds": 3600
  }
]

Then apply it with gcloud storage buckets update gs://my-bucket --cors-file=cors.json. This replaces the bucket’s CORS rules, so first add any rules already there to the same file. Run Test connection again afterwards.

Creating buckets

Overview has no Create bucket button for Cloud Storage connections. Create buckets in the Google Cloud console, add their names to Bucket scopes, and give the service account access.