Introduction to Firebase Storage #2: Retrieve & Delete Files
Tags: firebase, react, storage, beginners
Published: 2020-12-29 02:50:29

---
title: Introduction to Firebase Storage #2: Retrieve & Delete Files
published: true
date: 2020-11-24 04:55:42 UTC
tags: Firebase,React,storage,beginners
canonical_url: https://lo-victoria.com/introduction-to-firebase-storage-retrieve-delete-files
---

Hello everyone, in this article, we shall continue from where we left off in the previous article on [How to Upload Files to Firebase Cloud Storage](https://lo-victoria.com/introduction-to-firebase-storage-uploading-files). We will now learn how to retrieve and delete files from Firebase Cloud Storage.

## Retrieve files from Firebase
Refer to the previous article to learn how to set up Firebase Cloud Storage and create our project that we will continue building in this article.

### Step 1: Create allImages state
Initialize an array called `allImages`. This array will hold all the image URLs retrieved from Firebase.
```
 const [allImages, setImages] = useState([]);
```

### Step 2: getFromFirebase
Let's create a function called `getFromFirebase` that will handle retrieving all files from Firebase.

In this function, we want to:
- 1: Get reference to our storage bucket
- 2: Use `listAll()` to get all the reference object inside it

`listAll()` returns the reference to the images, not the images themselves. It has 2 properties: `items` and `prefixes`. Items are the image reference whereas prefixes are folders, in case you have nested folders in storage.

Below is an example of what `listAll()` returns when I have 8 images in storage.
![listAll.PNG](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1600472345778/L5c5rQivc.png)

- 3: Then loop through each `items` reference with `forEach()` to obtain the image URL with `getDownloadURL()`
- 4: Finally, add this URL into the `allImages` array with `setImages()`

```
  const getFromFirebase = () => {
    //1.
    let storageRef = storage.ref();
    //2.
    storageRef.listAll().then(function (res) {
        //3.
        res.items.forEach((imageRef) => {
          imageRef.getDownloadURL().then((url) => {
              //4.
              setImages((allImages) => [...allImages, url]);
          });
        });
      })
      .catch(function (error) {
        console.log(error);
      });
  };
```

### Step 3: Display Images
We can then create a component where we can display our images from the URLs in the`allImages` array. 
```
 <div id="photos">
     {allImages.map((image) => {
        return (
           <div key={image} className="image">
              <img src={image} alt="" />
              <button onClick={() => deleteFromFirebase(image)}>
               Delete
              </button>
           </div>
         );
     })}
</div>
```
On each image, we can have a Delete button to allow users to delete the picture they clicked on. Let's look at how we can implement the `deletedFromFirebase()` for the button.

## Delete Files From Firebase

### Step 4: deleteFromFirebase
Our `deleteFromFirebase` function takes in our image URL as an argument and deletes that URL from Firebase.

Here's how we can implement the function:
1. Using `refFromURL()`, we can get the image reference from Firebase Storage of the image we want to delete.
2. Then use `.delete()` to delete the image from Firebase.
3. Finally, we remove that URL from our `allImages` array.

```javascript
const deleteFromFirebase = (url) => {
    //1.
    let pictureRef = storage.refFromURL(url);
   //2.
    pictureRef.delete()
      .then(() => {
        //3.
        setImages(allImages.filter((image) => image !== url));
        alert("Picture is deleted successfully!");
      })
      .catch((err) => {
        console.log(err);
      });
  };
```
## And the result!
![ezgif.com-video-to-gif.gif](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1600459567977/VxCJlJfIr.gif)

And that's how we can upload images, retrieve and display them and delete them! 

To view the project I made for this tutorial, please visit the repo [here](https://github.com/victoria-lo/photo-album). And please read the [Firebase Documentation](https://firebase.google.com/docs/storage) for more information. 

Thank you for reading. I hope it's been a helpful 2-part read to help you get started with using Firebase Cloud Storage. As always, please do not hesitate to share any thoughts in the comments below. Till next time, cheers!