Manage assets

Earth Engine assets are project-owned geospatial data stored within the platform. You can upload your own data and store data produced from your Earth Engine analyses as assets.

Asset types

Earth Engine offers various asset formats for different data types, along with container elements for organization.

Asset types
Image A raster, a grid-based representation of geographic information where each cell in the grid holds a value corresponding to a specific location on the Earth's surface.
ImageCollection A collection of related raster images that constitute a mosaic or a time series. It is functionally similar to a folder, but can be imported into Earth Engine as an ee.ImageCollection object which includes a set of methods for filtering and analysis.
Table A table data structure composed of vector features (rows), each containing a series of properties (columns). It is represented by the ee.FeatureCollection object, which includes a set of methods for filtering and analysis.
Classifier A trained Earth Engine machine learning model. It is represented by the ee.Classifier object, which includes a set of methods for application and analysis.
FeatureView A visualization view of a table for use in Earth Engine Apps.
Folder A container for assets and additional folders to aid in organization.

Asset organization

Earth Engine assets are organized into a hierarchical system of folders and collections. The structure is similar to common file systems.

Root

Assets are owned by a Cloud project. The project name defines the root of the asset directory. For example, the root of my-project is projects/my-project/assets. All assets that belong to my-project are in the projects/my-project/assets folder or a sub-folder (or ImageCollection) within it.

Directory

Earth Engine uses a tree-like directory structure for organizing assets. Each Cloud project has a root directory that can contain individual assets and folders. ImageCollections are a special asset type designed specifically to hold sets of related images, such as time series or mosaics. Unlike folders, ImageCollections can only contain image assets and cannot nest other folders or collections within them.

  • folder_dataprojects/my-project/assets/
    • folder folder-name/
      • photo image-name
      • view_comfy table-name
      • satellite featureview-name
      • bubble_chart classifier-name
      • photo_library imagecollection-name/
        • photo image-name-1
        • photo image-name-2

Asset ID

Earth Engine uses asset IDs to reference data in both scripts and command-line operations. They define asset locations using forward slashes (/) as separators between directories. For example, projects/my-project/assets/my-asset specifies an asset named "my-asset" located in the "my-project" root. Here's an example of using this ID to get information about the asset.

Python

print(ee.data.getAsset('projects/my-project/assets/my-asset'))

Code Editor

print(ee.Image('projects/my-project/assets/my-asset'))

Command line

earthengine asset info projects/my-project/assets/my-asset

Create assets

You can create folders and ImageCollections and ingest images and tables from local files or files in a Google Cloud Storage bucket. Supported image formats include GeoTIFF (standard and COG) and TFRecord. Supported table formats include Shapefile and CSV. (Assets can also be created by exporting an Earth Engine analysis result using batch functions Export.*.toAsset).

Python client

Image

Use the ee.data.startIngestion function to ingest images from Cloud Storage. See the image manifest page for more information on configuring the upload.

manifest = {
  'name': 'projects/my-project/assets/asset-name',
  'tilesets': [
    {
      'sources': [
        {
          'uris': [
            'gs://my-bucket/filename.tif'
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
ee.data.startIngestion(None, manifest)

Table

Use the ee.data.startTableIngestion function to ingest tables from Cloud Storage. See the image manifest page for more information on configuring the upload.

manifest = {
  'name': 'projects/my-project/assets/asset-name',
  'sources': [
    {
      'uris': [
        'gs://my-bucket/filename.csv'
      ]
    }
  ]
}
ee.data.startTableIngestion(None, manifest)

Folder or ImageCollection

Use the ee.data.createAsset function to create empty folders or ImageCollections.

ee.data.createAsset(
    {'type': 'FOLDER'}, # or 'IMAGE_COLLECTION'
    'projects/my-project/assets/asset-name'
)

Code Editor

Within the Asset Manager, click the NEW button and select the asset type you'd like to upload or create from the drop list. Configure the asset upload or creation in the dialog.

Command line

Image or table

earthengine upload image --asset_id=projects/my-project/assets/asset-name gs://my-bucket/filename.tif
earthengine upload table --asset_id=projects/my-project/assets/asset-name gs://my-bucket/filename.csv

Folder or ImageCollection

Use the earthengine create command to create empty folders or ImageCollections.

earthengine create folder projects/my-project/assets/folder-name
earthengine create collection projects/my-project/assets/collection-name

External image

Cloud-optimized GeoTIFF (COG) files that you upload to a Google Cloud Storage bucket can be registered as external image assets and used directly in Earth Engine. See the reference docs for more information on COG backed assets and constructing a manifest.

earthengine alpha upload external_image --manifest /tmp/foo.json

List assets

Python client

Use the ee.data.listAssets function to list assets in a folder or collection (not recursive). See the reference docs for more information about filtering and pagination.

ee.data.listAssets('projects/my-project/assets')

Also see ee.data.listImages and ee.data.listFeatures.

Code Editor

Expand folders in the Asset Manager to view assets.

Command line

Use the earthengine ls command to list assets in a folder or collection (not recursive). See the reference docs for more information about limiting the number of assets to list and the amount detail to return.

earthengine ls projects/my-project/assets

Set asset permissions

Python client

Use the ee.data.setAssetAcl function to set permissions on an asset.

asset_id = 'projects/my-project/assets/asset-name'
acl_update = {
    'owners': [
        'user:big_cheese@example.com',
        'user:el_jefe@example.com'
    ],
    'writers': [
        'user:romeo@example.com',
        'user:juliet@example.com'
    ],
    'readers': [
        'group:some-group@googlegroups.com',
        'domain:example.com',
        'serviceAccount:some-project-id@appspot.gserviceaccount.com'
    ],
    'all_users_can_read': False
}
ee.data.setAssetAcl(asset_id, acl_update)

Code Editor

Within the Asset Manager, hold the pointer over an asset and click the share icon. In the dialog, enter an email address or domain to share the asset with, then select a permission level to grant from the drop list. Click the ADD ACCESS button to confirm the change. Check the "Anyone can read" box to grant any entity read permission. You can also provide access to Earth Engine apps from the dialog by selecting the app's name from the drop list (assets owned by the active Code Editor project).

Command line

Use the earthengine acl set command to set an asset's read access to public or private.

earthengine acl set public projects/my-project/assets/asset-name

Use the earthengine acl ch command to set individual permissions for asset read and write.

earthengine acl ch -u person@gmail.com:R projects/my-project/assets/asset-name

See the command line reference page for more details.

Check asset permissions

Python client

Use the ee.data.getAssetAcl function to fetch the access control list for an asset.

ee.data.getAssetAcl('projects/my-project/assets/asset-name')

Code Editor

Within the Asset Manager, hold the pointer over an asset and click the share icon. The dialog displays a list of emails and domains along with their respective access levels.

Command line

Use the earthengine acl get command to fetch the access control list for an asset.

earthengine acl get projects/my-project/assets/asset-name

Copy assets

Python client

Use the ee.data.copyAsset function to copy an asset.

ee.data.copyAsset('projects/my-project/assets/asset-name', 'projects/my-project/assets/asset-copy-name')

Code Editor

Use the Python client or the command line tool to copy assets.

Command line

Use the earthengine cp command to copy an asset.

earthengine cp projects/my-project/assets/asset-name projects/my-project/assets/asset-copy-name

Move or rename assets

Python client

Use the ee.data.renameAsset function to move or rename an asset.

ee.data.renameAsset('projects/my-project/assets/asset-name', 'projects/my-project/assets/new-asset-name')

Code Editor

Move

Within the Asset Manager, drag an asset into a new folder.

Rename

Within the Asset Manager, hold the pointer over an asset and click the edit icon and type a new name in the editable input field.

Command line

Use the earthengine mv command to move or rename an asset.

earthengine mv projects/my-project/assets/asset-name projects/my-project/assets/new-asset-name

Delete assets

Python client

Use the ee.data.deleteAsset function to delete an asset.

ee.data.deleteAsset('projects/my-project/assets/asset-name')

Code Editor

Click an asset to open the asset dialog page, then click the DELETE button.

Command line

Use the earthengine rm command to delete an asset. See the function reference for recursive and dry run options.

earthengine rm projects/my-project/assets/asset-name

View asset metadata

Python client

Use the ee.data.getAsset function to get asset metadata.

ee.data.getAsset('projects/my-project/assets/asset-name')

Code Editor

Click an asset to open the asset dialog page. View the asset information.

Command line

Use the earthengine asset info command to get asset metadata.

earthengine asset info projects/my-project/assets/asset-name

Set asset metadata

The following asset metadata can be set:

  • start_time
  • end_time

  • properties

Python client

Use the ee.data.updateAsset function to update asset metadata.

asset_id = 'projects/my-project/assets/asset-name'
new_metadata = {
  'properties': {
    'name': 'value'
  },
  'start_time': '2024-10-02T15:01:24Z',
  'end_time': '2024-10-02T15:01:25Z',
}
update_these = ['start_time', 'end_time', 'properties']

ee.data.updateAsset(asset_id, new_metadata, update_these)

Code Editor

Click an asset to open the asset dialog page, then activate the edit toggle in the upper right. You can edit the description, properties, and start and end date. Deactivate the edit toggle to save the changes.

Command line

Use the earthengine asset set command to update asset metadata. See the reference docs for more information.

earthengine asset set \
  --time_start 2024-10-02T15:01:24 \
  --time_end 2024-10-02T15:01:25 \
  --property 'name=value' \
  projects/my-project/assets/asset-name

Check asset quota

Quota is applied at the project level. Learn more about asset quota in the usage and quota limits page.

Python client

Use the ee.data.getAssetRootQuota function to get the storage quota usage for an asset root.

ee.data.getAssetRootQuota('projects/my-project/assets')

Code Editor

Within the Asset Manager, hold the pointer over a project root and click the data_usage icon. An information dialog will appear.

Command line

Use the Python client or the Code Editor to check asset quota.