blobfile

3.2.0 · active · verified Wed Apr 08

blobfile is a Python library that provides a unified interface for reading and writing files across local and remote blob storage systems, including Google Cloud Storage (GCS) and Azure Blob Storage (ABS). It offers an API similar to Python's built-in `open()` function, along with equivalents of common `os.path` and `shutil` operations. The current version is 3.2.0, released in April 2026, with a release cadence of approximately one major version per year.

Warnings

breaking In version 2.0.0, the default values for `configure` were changed to `output_az_paths=True` and `save_access_token_to_disk=True`.
Fix: Review and adjust your configuration settings if they differ from the new defaults.
gotcha Azure Blob Storage does not support multiple writers for the same blob; concurrent writes may lead to `ConcurrentWriteFailure` errors.
Fix: Ensure that only one process writes to a blob at a time, or implement a mechanism to handle concurrent writes appropriately.
gotcha When using `streaming=True` in `BlobFile`, appending to files is not implemented.
Fix: Set `streaming=False` if you need to append to files.
gotcha The `glob` function supports glob-style patterns but does not support character ranges.
Fix: Avoid using character ranges in glob patterns; use explicit patterns instead.
gotcha When writing to Azure Blob Storage, the `version` parameter can be used to ensure the remote version matches; mismatches raise a `VersionMismatch` error.
Fix: Use the `version` parameter to handle version control during writes to Azure Blob Storage.

Install

pip install blobfile Install blobfile

Imports

BlobFile
```
from blobfile import BlobFile
```
The correct import is case-sensitive; 'BlobFile' is the class name.
exists
```
from blobfile import exists
```
The function name is 'exists', not 'exist'.

Quickstart

This example demonstrates writing to, checking the existence of, and reading from a file in Google Cloud Storage using blobfile.

import blobfile as bf

# Write a file to Google Cloud Storage
with bf.BlobFile('gs://my-bucket-name/cats', 'wb') as f:
    f.write(b'meow!')

# Check if the file exists
print('exists:', bf.exists('gs://my-bucket-name/cats'))

# Read the file back
with bf.BlobFile('gs://my-bucket-name/cats', 'rb') as f:
    print('contents:', f.read())

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