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Delete containers based on container name prefix

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This script deletes containers in Azure Blob storage based on a prefix in the container name.

This sample requires Azure PowerShell. Run Get-Module -ListAvailable Az to find the version. If you need to install or upgrade, see Install Azure PowerShell module.

Run the Connect-AzAccount cmdlet to connect to Azure.

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.

Sample script

# this script will show how to delete containers with a specific prefix 
# the prefix this will search for is "image". 
# before running this, you need to create a storage account, create some containers,
#    some having the same prefix so you can test this
# note: this retrieves all of the matching containers in one command 
#       if you are going to run this against a storage account with a lot of containers
#       (more than a couple hundred), use continuation tokens to retrieve
#       the list of containers. We will be adding a sample showing that scenario in the future.

# these are for the storage account to be used
#   and the prefix for which to search
$resourceGroup = "containerdeletetestrg"
$storageAccountName = "containerdeletetest"
$prefix = "image"

# get a reference to the storage account and the context
$storageAccount = Get-AzStorageAccount `
  -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
  -Name $storageAccountName
$ctx = $storageAccount.Context 

# list all containers in the storage account 
Write-Host "All containers"
Get-AzStorageContainer -Context $ctx | select Name

# retrieve list of containers to delete
$listOfContainersToDelete = Get-AzStorageContainer -Context $ctx -Prefix $prefix

# write list of containers to be deleted 
Write-Host "Containers to be deleted"
$listOfContainersToDelete | select Name

# delete the containers; this pipes the result of the listing of the containers to delete
#    into the Remove-AzStorageContainer command. It handles all of the containers in the list.
Write-Host "Deleting containers"
$listOfContainersToDelete | Remove-AzStorageContainer -Context $ctx 

# show list of containers not deleted 
Write-Host "All containers not deleted"
Get-AzStorageContainer -Context $ctx | select Name

Clean up deployment

Run the following command to remove the resource group, remaining containers, and all related resources.

Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name containerdeletetestrg

Script explanation

This script uses the following commands to delete containers based on container name prefix. Each item in the table links to command-specific documentation.

Command Notes
Get-AzStorageAccount Gets a specified Storage account or all of the Storage accounts in a resource group or the subscription.
Get-AzStorageContainer Lists the storage containers associated with a storage account.
Remove-AzStorageContainer Removes the specified storage container.

Next steps

For more information on the Azure PowerShell module, see Azure PowerShell documentation.

Additional storage PowerShell script samples can be found in PowerShell samples for Azure Blob storage.