List Containers

The List Containers operation returns a list of the containers under the specified storage account.

Request

You can construct the List Containers request as follows. HTTPS is recommended. Replace myaccount with the name of your storage account.

Method	Request URI	HTTP version
GET	https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/?comp=list	HTTP/1.1

Note that the URI must always include the forward slash (/) to separate the host name from the path and query portions of the URI. In the case of the List Containers operation, the path portion of the URI is empty.

Emulated storage service request

When you make a request against the emulated storage service, specify the emulator hostname and Azure Blob Storage port as 127.0.0.1:10000, followed by the emulated storage account name.

Method	Request URI	HTTP version
GET	http://127.0.0.1:10000/devstoreaccount1?comp=list	HTTP/1.1

Note that emulated storage only supports blob sizes up to 2 GiB.

For more information, see Use Azurite emulator for local Azure Storage development and Differences between the Storage emulator and Azure Storage services.

URI parameters

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

Parameter	Description
prefix	Optional. Filters the results to return only containers with a name that begins with the specified prefix.
marker	Optional. A string value that identifies the portion of the list of containers to be returned with the next listing operation. The operation returns the NextMarker value within the response body, if the listing operation didn't return all containers remaining to be listed with the current page. You can use the NextMarker value as the value for the marker parameter in a subsequent call to request the next page of list items. The marker value is opaque to the client.
maxresults	Optional. Specifies the maximum number of containers to return. If the request doesn't specify maxresults, or specifies a value greater than 5000, the server will return up to 5000 items. Note that if the listing operation crosses a partition boundary, then the service will return a continuation token for retrieving the remainder of the results. For this reason, it's possible that the service will return fewer results than specified by maxresults, or than the default of 5000. If the parameter is set to a value less than or equal to zero, the server returns status code 400 (Bad Request).
include={metadata,deleted,system}	Optional. Specifies one or more datasets to include in the response: -metadata: Note that metadata requested with this parameter must be stored in accordance with the naming restrictions imposed by the 2009-09-19 version of Blob Storage. Beginning with this version, all metadata names must adhere to the naming conventions for C# identifiers. -deleted: Version 2019-12-12 and later. Specifies that soft-deleted containers should be included in the response. -system: Version 2020-10-02 and later. Specifies if system containers are to be included in the response. Including this option will list system containers, such as $logs and $changefeed. Note that the specific system containers returned will vary, based on which service features are enabled on the storage account.
timeout	Optional. The timeout parameter is expressed in seconds. For more information, see Setting timeouts for Blob Storage operations.

Request headers

The following table describes required and optional request headers.

Request header	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) 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-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 Blob Storage.

Request body

None.

Response

The response includes an HTTP status code, a set of response headers, and a response body in XML format.

Status code

A successful operation returns status code 200 (OK). For information about status codes, see Status and error codes.

Response headers

The response for this operation includes the following headers. The response also includes additional, standard HTTP headers. All standard headers conform to the HTTP/1.1 protocol specification.

Response header	Description
Content-Type	Standard HTTP/1.1 header. Specifies the format in which the results are returned. Currently, this value is application/xml.
x-ms-request-id	This header uniquely identifies the request that was made, and can be used for troubleshooting the request. For more information, see Troubleshooting API operations.
x-ms-version	Indicates the version of Blob Storage used to run the request. This header is returned for requests made against version 2009-09-19 and later.
Date	A UTC date/time value that indicates the time at which the response was initiated. The service generates this value.
x-ms-client-request-id	You can use this header 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. The value is at most 1024 visible ASCII characters. If the x-ms-client-request-id header isn't present in the request, this header won't be present in the response.

Response body

The format of the response body is as follows.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>  
<EnumerationResults ServiceEndpoint="https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net">  
  <Prefix>string-value</Prefix>  
  <Marker>string-value</Marker>  
  <MaxResults>int-value</MaxResults>  
  <Containers>  
    <Container>  
      <Name>container-name</Name>  
      <Version>container-version</Version>
      <Deleted>true</Deleted>
      <Properties>  
        <Last-Modified>date/time-value</Last-Modified>  
        <Etag>etag</Etag>  
        <LeaseStatus>locked | unlocked</LeaseStatus>  
        <LeaseState>available | leased | expired | breaking | broken</LeaseState>  
        <LeaseDuration>infinite | fixed</LeaseDuration> 
        <PublicAccess>container | blob</PublicAccess>
        <HasImmutabilityPolicy>true | false</HasImmutabilityPolicy>
        <HasLegalHold>true | false</HasLegalHold>
        <DeletedTime>datetime</DeletedTime>
        <RemainingRetentionDays>no-of-days</RemainingRetentionDays>
      </Properties>  
      <Metadata>  
        <metadata-name>value</metadata-name>  
      </Metadata>  
    </Container>  
  </Containers>  
  <NextMarker>marker-value</NextMarker>  
</EnumerationResults>  

LeaseStatus, LeaseState, and LeaseDuration only appear in version 2012-02-12 and later.

Beginning with version 2013-08-15, the AccountName attribute for the EnumerationResults element has been renamed to ServiceEndpoint. The URL element has also been removed from the Container element. For versions prior to 2013-08-15, the container's URL, as specified by the URL field, doesn't include the restype=container parameter. If you use this value to make subsequent requests against the enumerated containers, be sure to append this parameter to indicate that the resource type is a container.

The Prefix, Marker, and MaxResults elements are only present if you specify them on the URI. The NextMarker element has a value only if the list results aren't complete.

The Metadata element is present only if you specify the include=metadata parameter on the URI. Within the Metadata element, the value of each name-value pair is listed within an element corresponding to the pair's name.

If a metadata name-value pair violates the naming restrictions enforced by the 2009-09-19 version, the response body indicates the problematic name within an x-ms-invalid-name element. The following XML fragment shows this:

  
<Metadata>  
  <MyMetadata1>first value</MyMetadata1>  
  <MyMetadata2>second value</MyMetadata2>  
  <x-ms-invalid-name>invalid-metadata-name</x-ms-invalid-name>  
</Metadata>  
  

Beginning with the 2016-05-31 version, the container public permissions are provided in the PublicAccess property. It indicates whether data in the container can be accessed publicly, and the level of access. Possible values include:

• container: Indicates full, public read access for container and blob data. Clients can enumerate blobs within the container via anonymous request, but can't enumerate containers within the storage account.
• blob: Indicates public read access for blobs. Blob data within this container can be read via anonymous request, but container data isn't available. Clients can't enumerate blobs within the container via anonymous request.

If this property isn't specified in the <properties> section, the container is private to the account owner.

HasImmutabilityPolicy and HasLegalHold only appear in version 2017-11-09 and later. HasImmutabilityPolicy is true if the container has an immutability policy set on it, and false otherwise. HasLegalHold is true if the container has one or more legal holds on it, and false otherwise.

Note

Beginning with version 2009-09-19, the response body for List Containers returns the container's last modified time, in an element named Last-Modified. In previous versions, this element was named LastModified.

The Version, Deleted, DeletedTime, and RemainingRetentiondays elements only appear in version 2019-12-12 and later if you specify the deleted value for the query parameter include. These elements only appear if the container is soft deleted and is eligible to be restored. The Version, Deleted, DeletedTime, and RemainingRetentiondays elements only appear in version 2019-12-12 and later if the deleted value is specified for the include query parameter and if the container is soft deleted and eligible to be restored.

Authorization

Authorization is required when calling any data access operation in Azure Storage. You can authorize the List Containers operation as described below.

Important

Microsoft recommends using Microsoft Entra ID with managed identities to authorize requests to Azure Storage. Microsoft Entra ID provides superior security and ease of use compared to Shared Key authorization.

Microsoft Entra ID (recommended)

Azure Storage supports using Microsoft Entra ID to authorize requests to blob data. With Microsoft Entra ID, you can use Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) to grant permissions to a security principal. The security principal may be a user, group, application service principal, or Azure managed identity. The security principal is authenticated by Microsoft Entra ID to return an OAuth 2.0 token. The token can then be used to authorize a request against the Blob service.

To learn more about authorization using Microsoft Entra ID, see Authorize access to blobs using Microsoft Entra ID.

Permissions

Listed below are the RBAC action necessary for a Microsoft Entra user, group, managed identity, or service principal to call the List Containers operation, and the least privileged built-in Azure RBAC role that includes this action:

• Azure RBAC action: Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/blobServices/containers/read (scoped to the storage account or above)
• Least privileged built-in role: Storage Blob Data Contributor (scoped to the storage account or above)

To learn more about assigning roles using Azure RBAC, see Assign an Azure role for access to blob data.

Shared access signatures (SAS)

A shared access signature (SAS) provides secure delegated access to resources in a storage account. With a SAS, you have granular control over how a client can access data. You can specify what resource the client may access, what permissions they have to those resources, and how long the SAS is valid.

The List Containers operation supports authorization using an account SAS.

When Shared Key access is disallowed for the storage account, an account SAS token will not be permitted on a request to Blob Storage. To learn more, see Understand how disallowing Shared Key affects SAS tokens.

Account SAS

An account SAS is secured with the storage account key. An account SAS delegates access to resources in one or more of the storage services. All of the operations available via a service or user delegation SAS are also available via an account SAS.

The following table indicates the signed resource type and signed permissions to specify when delegating access:

Operation	Signed service	Signed resource type	Signed permission
List Containers	Blob (b)	Service (s)	List (l)

To learn more about the account SAS, see Create an account SAS.

Shared key

The List Containers operation supports Shared Key authorization. Authorizing with account keys is not recommended for most scenarios, as it's less secure. Microsoft recommends disallowing Shared Key authorization for the storage account when possible. For more information, see Prevent authorization with Shared Key.

Remarks

If you specify a value for the maxresults parameter, and the number of containers to return exceeds this value, or exceeds the default value for maxresults, the response body will contain the NextMarker element. (This is also referred to as a continuation token).

NextMarker indicates the next container to return on a subsequent request. To return the next set of items, specify the value of NextMarker for the marker parameter on the URI for the subsequent request. Note that the value of NextMarker should be treated as opaque.

If the listing operation crosses a partition boundary, then the service will return a value for the NextMarker element for retrieving the remainder of the results from the next partition. A listing operation that spans more than one partition results in a smaller set of items being returned than is specified by maxresults, or than the default of 5000. Your application should always check for the presence of the NextMarker element when you perform a listing operation, and handle it accordingly.

Containers are listed in alphabetical order in the response body.

The List Containers operation times out after 30 seconds.

Billing

Pricing requests can originate from clients that use Blob Storage APIs, either directly through the Blob Storage REST API, or from an Azure Storage client library. These requests accrue charges per transaction. The type of transaction affects how the account is charged. For example, read transactions accrue to a different billing category than write transactions. The following table shows the billing category for List Containers requests based on the storage account type:

Operation	Storage account type	Billing category
List Containers	Premium block blob Standard general-purpose v2 Standard general-purpose v1	List and Create Container operations

To learn about pricing for the specified billing category, see Azure Blob Storage Pricing.

Sample request and response

The following sample URI requests the list of containers for an account, setting the maximum results to return for the initial operation to three.

GET https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/?comp=list&maxresults=3 HTTP/1.1  

The request is sent with these headers:

x-ms-version: 2016-05-31  
x-ms-date: Wed, 26 Oct 2016 22:08:44 GMT  
Authorization: SharedKey myaccount:CY1OP3O3jGFpYFbTCBimLn0Xov0vt0khH/D5Gy0fXvg=  

The status code and response headers are returned as follows:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK  
Transfer-Encoding: chunked  
Content-Type: application/xml  
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2016 22:08:54 GMT  
x-ms-version: 2016-05-31  
Server: Windows-Azure-Blob/1.0 Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0  
  

The response XML for this request is as follows. Note that the NextMarker element follows the set of containers, and includes the name of the next container to be returned.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>  
<EnumerationResults ServiceEndpoint="https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/">  
  <MaxResults>3</MaxResults>  
  <Containers>  
    <Container>  
      <Name>audio</Name>  
      <Properties>  
        <Last-Modified>Wed, 26 Oct 2016 20:39:39 GMT</Last-Modified>  
        <Etag>0x8CACB9BD7C6B1B2</Etag> 
        <PublicAccess>container</PublicAccess> 
      </Properties>  
    </Container>  
    <Container>  
      <Name>images</Name>  
      <Properties>  
        <Last-Modified>Wed, 26 Oct 2016 20:39:39 GMT</Last-Modified>  
        <Etag>0x8CACB9BD7C1EEEC</Etag>  
      </Properties>  
    </Container>  
    <Container>  
      <Name>textfiles</Name>  
      <Properties>  
        <Last-Modified>Wed, 26 Oct 2016 20:39:39 GMT</Last-Modified>  
        <Etag>0x8CACB9BD7BACAC3</Etag>  
      </Properties>  
    </Container>  
  </Containers>  
  <NextMarker>video</NextMarker>  
</EnumerationResults>  

The subsequent list operation specifies the marker on the request URI, as follows. The next set of results is returned, beginning with the container specified by the marker.

https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/?comp=list&maxresults=3&marker=video  

See also

Authorize requests to Azure Storage
Status and error codes
Blob Storage error codes
Enumerating blob resources
Using the Azure Storage emulator for development and testing
Setting timeouts for Blob Storage operations