Delete a file from firebase storage using download url with Cloud Functions

Question

I have a collection of profiles in my Firestore db and a field named "profilePicture" with a downloadUrl as the value.

Im using cloud functions and been trying for a long time to figure out how to delete the profilePicture when the profile is deleted.

I know how to create a trigger when the profile is deleted and get the profile picture downloadUrl, but how do I delete the file from storage with only the downloadUrl?

Answer 1

The firebase storage documentation provides a method refFromURL(url) that can be used on a Storage instance. It states the url argument can be:

A URL in the form:

1) a gs:// URL, for example gs://bucket/files/image.png

2) a download URL taken from object metadata.

Based (2) above, it seems like an HTTP URL should also work. However it probably is better practise to store a path string, as the tokens on the HTTP URLs can get rotated by Firebase.