Upload and Delete Azure Storage Blob using azure-storage-blob or azure-storage

Question

I refer to Microsoft's Quick Start guide for Azure Blob storage client library v12 for Python. It details how to upload a blob but I want to delete a blob. This answer recommends using:

from azure.storage.blob import BlobService

blob_service = BlobService(account_name=accountName, account_key=accountKey)
blob_service.delete_blob(container_name, blob_name)

However, I tried but I got the following error:

ImportError: cannot import name 'BlobService' from 'azure.storage.blob'

Another answer recommends using from azure.storage.blob import BlockBlobService, but I got the same ImportError as above as well.

I searched through Stackoverflow for resolving said error and came across this answer which recommends using an older version of the library (azure-storage) and another answer which recommends installing the entire azure library, but I would like to use the latest library instead.

How do I upload a file and delete a blob using the latest azure-storage-blob library? Alternatively, if I am a new user in 2019 and am following said Quick Start guide but I want to use the old azure-storage library which many of the answers here recommend instead, how can I do that?

Answer 1

Answer Updated for 2019 onward

There are 2 ways to upload and delete a blob, the first using the new azure-storage-blob library (2019) and the second using the old azure-storage library (pre-2019).

Use Method 1 if you are a new user from 2019 onward following the updated Quick Start guide.

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Method 1. Using the new azure-storage-blob library (2019)

Uninstall the old azure-storage library first if you have installed it, then install the new azure-storage-blob library. Use pip3 for Python 3 or pip for Python 2:

pip3 uninstall azure-storage
pip3 install azure-storage-blob

Depending on your Python version, pip freeze or pip3 freeze should reveal the following:

azure-common==1.1.23
azure-core==1.0.0
azure-nspkg==3.0.2
azure-storage-blob==12.0.0

If you want to upload files and delete blobs using the same client, use ContainerClient. The documentation can be found here.

Code for uploading file using ContainerClient:

from azure.storage.blob import ContainerClient

CONNECT_STR = ""
CONTAINER_NAME = ""
input_file_path = "/path/to/your/input_file.csv"
output_blob_name = "output_blob.csv"

container_client = ContainerClient.from_connection_string(conn_str=CONNECT_STR, container_name=CONTAINER_NAME)

# Upload file
with open(input_file_path, "rb") as data:
    container_client.upload_blob(name=output_blob_name, data=data)

Code for deleting blob using ContainerClient:

from azure.storage.blob import ContainerClient

CONNECT_STR = ""
CONTAINER_NAME = ""
blob_name = "output_blob.csv"

container_client = ContainerClient.from_connection_string(conn_str=CONNECT_STR, container_name=CONTAINER_NAME)

# Delete blob
container_client.delete_blob(blob=blob_name)

Alternatively, you can use BlobServiceClient to upload files as per the Quick Start guide.

Code for uploading file using BlobServiceClient:

from azure.storage.blob import BlobServiceClient

CONNECT_STR = ""
CONTAINER_NAME = ""
input_file_path = "/path/to/your/input_file.csv"
output_blob_name = "output_blob.csv"

blob_service_client = BlobServiceClient.from_connection_string(CONNECT_STR)
blob_client = blob_service_client.get_blob_client(container=CONTAINER_NAME, blob=output_blob_name)

# Upload file
with open(input_file_path, "rb") as data:
    blob_client.upload_blob(data=data)

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Method 2. Using the old azure-storage library (pre-2019)

Uninstall the new azure-storage-blob library first if you have installed it, then install the old azure-storage library. Use pip3 for Python 3 or pip for Python 2:

pip3 uninstall azure-storage-blob
pip3 install azure-storage

Depending on your Python version, pip freeze or pip3 freeze should reveal the following:

azure-common==1.1.23
azure-core==1.0.0
azure-nspkg==3.0.2
azure-storage==0.36.0

We can use BlockBlobService client to upload files and delete blobs.

Code for uploading file using BlockBlobService:

from azure.storage.blob import BlockBlobService

AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME = ""
AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_KEY = ""
CONTAINER_NAME = ""
input_file_path = "/path/to/your/input_file.csv"
output_blob_name = "output_blob.csv"

block_blob_service = BlockBlobService(account_name=AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME, account_key=AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_KEY)

# Upload file
block_blob_service.create_blob_from_path(CONTAINER_NAME, output_blob_name, input_file_path)

Code for deleting blob using BlockBlobService:

from azure.storage.blob import BlockBlobService

AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME = ""
AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_KEY = ""
CONTAINER_NAME = ""
blob_name = "output_blob.csv"

block_blob_service = BlockBlobService(account_name=AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME, account_key=AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_KEY)

# Delete blob
block_blob_service.delete_blob(CONTAINER_NAME, blob_name)

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Background

As mentioned in this answer, there were breaking changes introduced to the azure-storage library since 0.37.0. According to the change log, not only has the namespaces been changed, but the library has also been split into 5 different packages:

1. azure-storage-common
2. azure-storage-blob
3. azure-storage-file
4. azure-storage-queue
5. azure-storage-nspkg

Despite many answers already available on other posts, I wanted to point out that for new users trying this out in 2019 onward, trying to find the correct code for the library is complicated by the fact that many if not most answers offered here on Stackoverflow still reference the old library azure-storage, but new users follow the new tutorial by Microsoft updated in May 2019 which uses the new azure-storage-blob instead. New users searching for help will inadvertently stumble upon the old answers using the old azure-storage library but those do not work for them.