Quickstart for Windows

This page shows how to install the Google Cloud SDK, initialize it, and run core gcloud commands from the command-line.

Before you begin

  1. Create a Google Cloud Platform project, if you don't have one already.
  2. Download the Google Cloud SDK installer.

  3. Launch the installer and follow the prompts.

  4. After installation has completed, the installer presents several options:

    Windows installer prompts

    Make sure that the following are selected:

    • Start Google Cloud SDK Shell
    • Run 'gcloud init'


Troubleshooting tips:

  • If the Cloud SDK fails to run after installing version 274.0.0, please refer to this tracking bug for the latest workarounds.
  • If you have just uninstalled Cloud SDK, you will need to reboot your system before installing Cloud SDK again.

Initialize the SDK


To initialize the SDK:

  1. Run the following at a command prompt:

    gcloud init

    Note: If you get an error related to the gcloud command not being found, refer to step 5 in the section above.

    Note: To prevent the command from launching a web browser, use gcloud init --console-only instead. To authorize without a web browser and non-interactively, create a service account with the appropriate scopes using the Google Cloud Platform Console and use gcloud auth activate-service-account with the corresponding JSON key file.

  2. Accept the option to log in using your Google user account:



    Pick cloud project to use:
     [1] [my-project-1]
     [2] [my-project-2]
     Please enter your numeric choice:



    Which compute zone would you like to use as project default?
     [1] [asia-east1-a]
     [2] [asia-east1-b]
     [14] Do not use default zone
     Please enter your numeric choice:

    gcloud init confirms that you have complete the setup steps successfully:

    gcloud has now been configured!
    You can use [gcloud config] to change more gcloud settings.
    Your active configuration is: [default]
  6. (Optional) If you'd like a more streamlined screen reader experience, the gcloud command-line tool comes with an accessibility/screen_reader property.

    To enable this property, run:

    gcloud config set accessibility/screen_reader true


Run core gcloud commands

Run these gcloud commands to view information about your SDK installation:

  1. To list accounts whose credentials are stored on the local system:

    gcloud auth list

    gcloud displays a list of credentialed accounts:

           Credentialed Accounts
    ACTIVE             ACCOUNT
    *                  example-user-1@gmail.com
  2. To list the properties in your active SDK configuration:

    gcloud config list

    gcloud displays the list of properties:

    account = example-user-1@gmail.com
    disable_usage_reporting = False
    project = example-project
  3. To view information about your Cloud SDK installation and the active SDK configuration:

    gcloud info

    gcloud displays a summary of information about your Cloud SDK installation. This includes information about your system, the installed SDK components, the active user account and current project, and the properties in the active SDK configuration.

  4. To view information about gcloud commands and other topics from the command line:

    gcloud help

    For example, to view the help for gcloud compute instances create:

    gcloud help compute instances create

    gcloud displays a help topic that contains a description of the command, a list of command flags and arguments, and examples of how to use it.

What's next

  • Read the gcloud tool guide for an overview of the gcloud command-line tool, including a quick introduction to key concepts, command conventions, and helpful tips.
  • Read the gcloud reference guide for detailed pages on each gcloud command, including descriptions, flags, and examples, that you can use to perform a variety of tasks on Google Cloud Platform.
  • Install additional components such as the App Engine emulators or kubectl using the Cloud SDK component manager.
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