Create a Blob in Azure Storage

Prerequisites

• An Azure account with an active subscription. If you don't have one, create a free account.
• A Storage account in your Azure subscription. If you haven't created one, follow this guide.

Method 1: Using the Azure Portal

The Azure portal provides a user-friendly interface for managing your Azure resources, including creating blobs.

1. Sign in to the Azure portal: portal.azure.com.
2. Navigate to your Storage Account: In the search bar at the top, type "Storage accounts" and select it from the results. Then, select your desired storage account.
3. Go to Containers: In the left-hand menu of your storage account, under "Data storage," select "Containers."
4. Create a New Container: Click the "+ Container" button.
5. Configure Container Settings:
   • Name: Enter a unique name for your container (e.g., my-blob-container). Container names must be lowercase letters and numbers.
   • Public access level: Choose the appropriate level. For this tutorial, "Private (no anonymous access)" is recommended.
6. Click Create: Your new container will appear in the list.
7. Navigate into the Container: Click on the name of the container you just created.
8. Upload a Blob: Click the "Upload" button. You can drag and drop files or browse to select them. For now, we are creating an empty blob.
9. Create Empty Blob: To create an empty blob, click on the "Upload" button, then select "Add folder" or "Upload blob". To simply create an empty blob, you can create a folder, or upload a file. If you upload a file, it will be created. For an empty blob, you can also use the Azure CLI or SDKs.

Method 2: Using Azure CLI

The Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI) allows you to manage Azure resources from your command line.

Log in to Azure

If you haven't already, log in to your Azure account:

Create a Container (if it doesn't exist)

You need a container to store your blobs. Replace <your-storage-account-name> and <your-container-name> with your actual values.

Or using an account key:

Create an Empty Blob

Use the az storage blob exists command to check if the blob already exists, and then az storage blob upload-chunk to create it. A more direct way for empty blobs is to upload an empty file or use the SDKs. For simplicity in this example, we'll demonstrate creating a blob from content, which implicitly creates it.

Let's create a simple text blob. First, create a local file with some content:

Now, upload this file as a blob:

Replace <your-storage-account-name>, <your-container-name>, and <your-blob-name> (e.g., my-first-blob.txt) with your specific values.

To create a truly empty blob with Azure CLI without a local file, it's a bit more involved and often better handled by SDKs. However, you can effectively create an empty blob by uploading a zero-byte file:

This command will create a blob named empty-blob.txt within your specified container. You can then delete the local empty file if desired.

Next Steps

Now that you have created a blob, you can:

• Upload content to your blob
• Download your blob
• List blobs in a container