Copy blobs between Azure storage accounts by using AzCopy

You can use the AzCopy v10 command-line utility to copy blobs, directories, and containers between storage accounts.

For examples of other types of tasks, such as uploading files, downloading blobs, and synchronizing with Blob storage, see the links in the Next Steps section of this article.

AzCopy uses server-to-server APIs, so data is copied directly between storage servers.

Get started

See the Get started with AzCopy article to download AzCopy and learn about the ways that you can provide authorization credentials to the storage service.

Guidelines

Apply the following guidelines to your AzCopy commands.

• If you use Microsoft Entra authorization for both source and destination, both accounts must belong to the same Microsoft Entra tenant.

• Your client must have network access to both the source and destination storage accounts.

  To learn how to configure the network settings for each storage account, see Configure Azure Storage firewalls and virtual networks.

  To learn about supported network topologies when copying between accounts, see Copy blobs between storage accounts with access restriction.

• If you copy to a premium block blob storage account, omit the access tier of a blob from the copy operation by setting the s2s-preserve-access-tier to false (For example: --s2s-preserve-access-tier=false). Premium block blob storage accounts don't support access tiers.

• You can increase the throughput of copy operations by setting the value of the AZCOPY_CONCURRENCY_VALUE environment variable. To learn more, see Increase Concurrency.

• If the source blobs have index tags, and you want to retain those tags, you need to reapply them to the destination blobs. For information about how to set index tags, see the Copy blobs to another storage account with index tags section of this article.

Copy a blob

Copy a blob to another storage account by using the azcopy copy command.

Syntax

azcopy copy 'https://<source-storage-account-name>.<blob or dfs>.core.windows.net/<container-name>/<blob-path>' 'https://<destination-storage-account-name>.<blob or dfs>.core.windows.net/<container-name>/<blob-path>'

Example

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/myTextFile.txt' 'https://mydestinationaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/myTextFile.txt'

Example (Data Lake Storage endpoints)

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.dfs.core.windows.net/mycontainer/myTextFile.txt' 'https://mydestinationaccount.dfs.core.windows.net/mycontainer/myTextFile.txt'

The copy operation is synchronous. When the command returns, it indicates that all files are copied.

Copy a directory

Copy a directory to another storage account by using the azcopy copy command.

Syntax

azcopy copy 'https://<source-storage-account-name>.<blob or dfs>.core.windows.net/<container-name>/<directory-path>' 'https://<destination-storage-account-name>.<blob or dfs>.core.windows.net/<container-name>' --recursive

Example

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/myBlobDirectory' 'https://mydestinationaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer' --recursive

Example (Data Lake Storage endpoints)

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.dfs.core.windows.net/mycontainer/myBlobDirectory' 'https://mydestinationaccount.dfs.core.windows.net/mycontainer' --recursive

The copy operation is synchronous. When the command returns, all files are copied.

Copy a container

Copy a container to another storage account by using the azcopy copy command.

Syntax

azcopy copy 'https://<source-storage-account-name>.<blob or dfs>.core.windows.net/<container-name>' 'https://<destination-storage-account-name>.<blob or dfs>.core.windows.net/<container-name>' --recursive

Example

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer' 'https://mydestinationaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer' --recursive

Example (Data Lake Storage endpoints)

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.dfs.core.windows.net/mycontainer' 'https://mydestinationaccount.dfs.core.windows.net/mycontainer' --recursive

The copy operation is synchronous. When the command returns, all files are copied.

Copy containers, directories, and blobs

Copy all containers, directories, and blobs to another storage account by using the azcopy copy command.

Syntax

azcopy copy 'https://<source-storage-account-name>.<blob or dfs>.core.windows.net/' 'https://<destination-storage-account-name>.<blob or dfs>.core.windows.net/' --recursive

Example

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.blob.core.windows.net/' 'https://mydestinationaccount.blob.core.windows.net' --recursive

Example (Data Lake Storage endpoints)

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.dfs.core.windows.net/' 'https://mydestinationaccount.dfs.core.windows.net' --recursive

The copy operation is synchronous. When the command returns, it indicates that all files are copied.

Copy blobs and add index tags

Copy blobs to another storage account and add blob index tags to the target blob.

If you're using Microsoft Entra authorization, assign the Storage Blob Data Owner role to your security principal, or give it permission to the Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/blobServices/containers/blobs/tags/write Azure resource provider operation through a custom Azure role. If you're using a Shared Access Signature (SAS) token, the token must provide access to the blob's tags through the t SAS permission.

To add tags, use the --blob-tags option with a URL encoded key-value pair.

For example, to add the key my tag and the value my tag value, add --blob-tags='my%20tag=my%20tag%20value' to the destination parameter.

Separate multiple index tags with an ampersand (&). For example, if you want to add the key my second tag and the value my second tag value, the complete option string would be --blob-tags='my%20tag=my%20tag%20value&my%20second%20tag=my%20second%20tag%20value'.

The following examples show how to use the --blob-tags option.

Blob example

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/myTextFile.txt' 'https://mydestinationaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/myTextFile.txt' --blob-tags='my%20tag=my%20tag%20value&my%20second%20tag=my%20second%20tag%20value'

Directory example

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/myBlobDirectory' 'https://mydestinationaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer' --recursive --blob-tags='my%20tag=my%20tag%20value&my%20second%20tag=my%20second%20tag%20value'

Container example

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer' 'https://mydestinationaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer' --recursive --blob-tags='my%20tag=my%20tag%20value&my%20second%20tag=my%20second%20tag%20value'

Account example

azcopy copy 'https://mysourceaccount.blob.core.windows.net/' 'https://mydestinationaccount.blob.core.windows.net' --recursive --blob-tags='my%20tag=my%20tag%20value&my%20second%20tag=my%20second%20tag%20value'

The copy operation is synchronous. When the command returns, all files are copied.

Copy with optional flags

You can tweak your copy operation by using optional flags. Here's a few examples.

For a complete list, see options.

Specify source and destination types

AzCopy uses the --from-to parameter to explicitly define the source and destination resource types when automatic detection might fail, such as in piping scenarios or emulators. This parameter helps AzCopy understand the context of the transfer and optimize accordingly.

Next steps

Find more examples in these articles:

• Examples: Upload
• Examples: Download
• Examples: Synchronize
• Examples: Amazon S3 buckets
• Examples: Google Cloud Storage
• Examples: Azure Files

See these articles to configure settings, optimize performance, and troubleshoot issues:

• AzCopy configuration settings
• Optimize the performance of AzCopy
• Find errors and resume jobs by using log and plan files in AzCopy
• Troubleshoot problems with AzCopy v10
• Use AzCopy to copy blobs between Azure storage accounts with network restrictions