Create Directory

The Create Directory operation creates a new directory under the specified share or parent directory. The directory resource includes the properties for that directory. It doesn't include a list of the files or subdirectories contained by the directory.

Protocol availability

Enabled file share protocol Available
SMB Yes
NFS No

Request

You can construct the Create Directory request as follows. We recommend that you use HTTPS.

Method Request URI HTTP version
PUT https://myaccount.file.core.windows.net/myshare/myparentdirectorypath/mydirectory?restype=directory HTTP/1.1

Replace the path components in the request URI with your own, as shown in the following table:

Path component Description
myaccount The name of your storage account.
myshare The name of your file share.
myparentdirectorypath Optional. The path to the parent directory where mydirectory is to be created. If the parent directory path is omitted, the directory will be created within the specified share.

If the parent directory is specified, it must already exist within the share before you can create mydirectory.
mydirectory The name of the directory to create.

For more information about path-naming restrictions, see Name and reference shares, directories, files, and metadata.

URI parameters

You can specify the following additional parameters on the request URI.

Parameter Description
timeout Optional. The timeout parameter is expressed in seconds. For more information, see Set time-outs for File service operations.

Request body

None.

Request headers

The required and optional request headers are described in the following table:

Parameter Description
Authorization Required. Specifies the authorization scheme, account name, and signature. For more information, see Authorize requests to Azure Storage.
Date or x-ms-date Required. Specifies the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) time for the request. For more information, see Authorize requests to Azure Storage.
x-ms-version Required for all authorized requests. Specifies the version of the operation to use for this request. For more information, see Versioning for the Azure Storage services.
x-ms-meta-name:value Optional. Version 2015-02-21 or later. A name-value pair to associate with the directory as metadata.

Metadata names must adhere to the naming rules for C# identifiers.
x-ms-file-permission: { inherit ¦ <SDDL> } In version 2019-02-02 through 2021-04-10, this header is required if x-ms-file-permission-key isn't specified. As of version 2021-06-08, both headers are optional. This permission is the security descriptor for the directory that's specified in the Security Descriptor Definition Language (SDDL). This header can be used if the permissions size is over 8 kibibytes (KiB). Otherwise, you can use x-ms-file-permission-key. If it's specified, it must have an owner, group, and discretionary access control list (DACL). You can pass a value of inherit to inherit from the parent directory.

Note: You can specify either x-ms-file-permission or x-ms-file-permission-key. If neither header is specified, the default value of inherit is used.
x-ms-file-permission-key: <PermissionKey> The key of the permission to be set for the directory. In version 2019-02-02 through 2021-04-10, this header is required if x-ms-file-permission isn't specified. As of version 2021-06-08, both headers are optional. You can create this key by using the Create-Permission API.

Note: You can specify either x-ms-file-permission or x-ms-file-permission-key. If neither header is specified, the default value of inherit is used for the x-ms-file-permission header.
x-ms-file-attributes Required: version 2019-02-02 through 2021-04-10. Optional: version 2021-06-08 and later. The file system attributes to be set on the directory. See the list of available attributes. The default value is Directory.
x-ms-file-creation-time: { now ¦ <DateTime> } Required: version 2019-02-02 to 2021-04-10. Optional: version 2021-06-08 and newer. The Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) creation time property for the directory. You can use a value of now to indicate the time of the request. The default value is now.
x-ms-file-last-write-time: { now ¦ <DateTime> } Required: version 2019-02-02 through 2021-04-10. Optional: version 2021-06-08 or later. The Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) last write property for the directory. You can use a value of now to indicate the time of the request. The default value is now.
x-ms-client-request-id Optional. Provides a client-generated, opaque value with a 1-kibibyte (KiB) character limit that's recorded in the logs when logging is configured. We highly recommend that you use this header to correlate client-side activities with requests that the server receives. For more information, see Monitor Azure Files.
x-ms-file-change-time: { now ¦ <DateTime> } Optional. The Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) change time property for the directory, in the ISO 8601 format. Version 2021-06-08 and newer. You can use a value of now to indicate the time of the request. The default value is now.
x-ms-file-request-intent Required if Authorization header specifies an OAuth token. Acceptable value is backup. This header specifies that the Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/fileServices/readFileBackupSemantics/action or Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/fileServices/writeFileBackupSemantics/action should be granted if they are included in the RBAC policy assigned to the identity that is authorized using the Authorization header. Available for version 2022-11-02 and later.
x-ms-allow-trailing-dot: { <Boolean> } Optional. Version 2022-11-02 and later. The Boolean value specifies if a trailing dot present in request url should be trimmed or not. For more information, see Naming and referencing shares, directories, files, and metadata.

Sample request

PUT https://myaccount.file.core.windows.net/myshare/myparentdirectorypath/mydirectory? restype=directory HTTP/1.1  
  
Request headers:  
x-ms-version: 2014-02-14  
x-ms-date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 22:50:32 GMT  
x-ms-meta-Category: Images  
Authorization: SharedKey myaccount:Z5043vY9MesKNh0PNtksNc9nbXSSqGHueE00JdjidOQ=  

Response

The response includes an HTTP status code and a set of response headers.

Status code

A successful operation returns status code 201 (Created).

For more information about status codes, see Status and error codes.

Response headers

The response for this operation includes the headers that are described in the following table. The response can also include additional standard HTTP headers. All standard headers conform to the HTTP/1.1 protocol specification.

Response header Description
ETag Contains a value that represents the version of the directory, enclosed in quotation marks.
Last-Modified Returns the date and time when the directory was last modified. The date format follows RFC 1123. For more information, see Represent date/time values in headers. Any operation that modifies the directory or its properties updates the last modified time. Operations on files don't affect the last modified time of the directory.
x-ms-request-id Uniquely identifies the request that was made and can be used for troubleshooting the request. For more information, see Troubleshoot API Operations.
x-ms-version Indicates the Azure Files version that was used to execute the request.
Date A UTC date/time value that's generated by the service, which indicates the time when the response was initiated.
x-ms-request-server-encrypted: true/false Version 2017-04-17 or later. The value of this header is set to true if the contents of the request are successfully encrypted using the specified algorithm, and false otherwise.
x-ms-file-permission-key The key of the permission of the directory.
x-ms-file-attributes The file system attributes on the directory. See the list of available attributes.
x-ms-file-creation-time The UTC date/time value that represents the creation time property for the directory.
x-ms-file-last-write-time The UTC date/time value that represents the last write time property for the directory.
x-ms-file-change-time The UTC date/time that value that represents the change time property for the directory.
x-ms-file-file-id The file ID of the directory.
x-ms-file-parent-id The parent file ID of the directory.
x-ms-client-request-id Can be used to troubleshoot requests and corresponding responses. The value of this header is equal to the value of the x-ms-client-request-id header if it's present in the request and the value contains no more than 1024 visible ASCII characters. If the x-ms-client-request-id header isn't present in the request, this header isn't present in the response.

Response body

None.

Sample response

Response status:  
HTTP/1.1 201 Created  
  
Response headers:  
Transfer-Encoding: chunked  
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 23:00:12 GMT  
ETag: "0x8CB14C3E29B7E82"  
Last-Modified: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 23:00:06 GMT  
x-ms-version: 2014-02-14  
Server: Windows-Azure-File/1.0 Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0  

Authorization

Only the account owner may call this operation.

File system attributes

Attribute Win32 file attribute Definition
ReadOnly FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY A directory that's read-only.
Hidden FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN The directory is hidden. It isn't included in an ordinary directory listing.
System FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SYSTEM A directory that the operating system uses a part of, or uses exclusively.
None FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL A directory that doesn't have other attributes set. This attribute is valid only when it's used alone.
Directory FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY The handle that identifies a directory.
Archive FILE_ATTRIBUTE_ARCHIVE A directory that's an archive directory. Applications ordinarily use this attribute to mark files for backup or removal.
Offline FILE_ATTRIBUTE_OFFLINE The data of a directory isn't available immediately. This file system attribute is presented primarily to provide compatibility with Windows. Azure Files doesn't support it with offline storage options.
NotContentIndexed FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NOT_CONTENT_INDEXED The directory isn't to be indexed by the content indexing service.
NoScrubData FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NO_SCRUB_DATA The user data stream that's not to be read by the background data integrity scanner. This file system attribute is presented primarily to provide compatibility with Windows.

Remarks

If a directory by the same name is being deleted when Create Directory is called, the server returns status code 409 (Conflict), and it provides additional error information that indicates that the directory is being deleted.

If a directory or file with the same name already exists, the operation fails with status code 409 (Conflict). If the parent directory doesn't exist, the operation fails with status code 412 (Precondition Failed).

It isn't possible to create a directory hierarchy with a single Create Directory operation. You can create the directory only if its immediate parent already exists, as specified in the path. If the parent directory doesn't exist, the operation fails with status code 412 (Precondition Failed).

Create Directory isn't supported on a share snapshot, which is a read-only copy of a share. An attempt to perform this operation on a share snapshot will fail with 400 (InvalidQueryParameterValue)

See also

Operations on directories