Cloudflare R2 Object Storage

Status: Production Ready ✅ Last Updated: 2025-10-21 Dependencies: cloudflare-worker-base (for Worker setup) Latest Versions: wrangler@4.43.0, @cloudflare/workers-types@4.20251014.0, aws4fetch@1.0.20

Quick Start (5 Minutes)

1. Create R2 Bucket

# Via Wrangler CLI (recommended)
npx wrangler r2 bucket create my-bucket

# Or via Cloudflare Dashboard
# https://dash.cloudflare.com → R2 Object Storage → Create bucket

Bucket Naming Rules:

• 3-63 characters
• Lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens only
• Must start/end with letter or number
• Globally unique within your account

2. Configure R2 Binding

Add to your wrangler.jsonc:

{
  "name": "my-worker",
  "main": "src/index.ts",
  "compatibility_date": "2025-10-11",
  "r2_buckets": [
    {
      "binding": "MY_BUCKET",          // Available as env.MY_BUCKET in your Worker
      "bucket_name": "my-bucket",      // Name from wrangler r2 bucket create
      "preview_bucket_name": "my-bucket-preview"  // Optional: separate bucket for dev
    }
  ]
}

CRITICAL:

• binding is how you access the bucket in code (env.MY_BUCKET)
• bucket_name is the actual R2 bucket name
• preview_bucket_name is optional but recommended for separate dev/prod data

3. Basic Upload/Download

// src/index.ts
import { Hono } from 'hono';

type Bindings = {
  MY_BUCKET: R2Bucket;
};

const app = new Hono<{ Bindings: Bindings }>();

// Upload file
app.put('/upload/:filename', async (c) => {
  const filename = c.req.param('filename');
  const body = await c.req.arrayBuffer();

  try {
    const object = await c.env.MY_BUCKET.put(filename, body, {
      httpMetadata: {
        contentType: c.req.header('content-type') || 'application/octet-stream',
      },
    });

    return c.json({
      success: true,
      key: object.key,
      size: object.size,
      etag: object.etag,
    });
  } catch (error: any) {
    console.error('R2 Upload Error:', error.message);
    return c.json({ error: 'Upload failed' }, 500);
  }
});

// Download file
app.get('/download/:filename', async (c) => {
  const filename = c.req.param('filename');

  try {
    const object = await c.env.MY_BUCKET.get(filename);

    if (!object) {
      return c.json({ error: 'File not found' }, 404);
    }

    return new Response(object.body, {
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': object.httpMetadata?.contentType || 'application/octet-stream',
        'ETag': object.httpEtag,
        'Cache-Control': object.httpMetadata?.cacheControl || 'public, max-age=3600',
      },
    });
  } catch (error: any) {
    console.error('R2 Download Error:', error.message);
    return c.json({ error: 'Download failed' }, 500);
  }
});

export default app;

4. Deploy and Test

# Deploy
npx wrangler deploy

# Test upload
curl -X PUT https://my-worker.workers.dev/upload/test.txt \
  -H "Content-Type: text/plain" \
  -d "Hello, R2!"

# Test download
curl https://my-worker.workers.dev/download/test.txt

R2 Workers API

Type Definitions

// Add to env.d.ts or worker-configuration.d.ts
interface Env {
  MY_BUCKET: R2Bucket;
  // ... other bindings
}

// For Hono
type Bindings = {
  MY_BUCKET: R2Bucket;
};

const app = new Hono<{ Bindings: Bindings }>();

put() - Upload Objects

Signature:

put(key: string, value: ReadableStream | ArrayBuffer | ArrayBufferView | string | Blob, options?: R2PutOptions): Promise<R2Object | null>

Basic Usage:

// Upload from request body
await env.MY_BUCKET.put('path/to/file.txt', request.body);

// Upload string
await env.MY_BUCKET.put('config.json', JSON.stringify({ foo: 'bar' }));

// Upload ArrayBuffer
await env.MY_BUCKET.put('image.png', await file.arrayBuffer());

With Metadata:

const object = await env.MY_BUCKET.put('document.pdf', fileData, {
  httpMetadata: {
    contentType: 'application/pdf',
    contentLanguage: 'en-US',
    contentDisposition: 'attachment; filename="report.pdf"',
    contentEncoding: 'gzip',
    cacheControl: 'public, max-age=86400',
  },
  customMetadata: {
    userId: '12345',
    uploadDate: new Date().toISOString(),
    version: '1.0',
  },
});

Conditional Uploads (Prevent Overwrites):

// Only upload if file doesn't exist
const object = await env.MY_BUCKET.put('file.txt', data, {
  onlyIf: {
    uploadedBefore: new Date('2020-01-01'), // Any date before R2 existed
  },
});

if (!object) {
  // File already exists, upload prevented
  return c.json({ error: 'File already exists' }, 409);
}

// Only upload if etag matches (update specific version)
const object = await env.MY_BUCKET.put('file.txt', data, {
  onlyIf: {
    etagMatches: existingEtag,
  },
});

With Checksums:

// R2 will verify the checksum
const md5Hash = await crypto.subtle.digest('MD5', fileData);

await env.MY_BUCKET.put('file.txt', fileData, {
  md5: md5Hash,
});

get() - Download Objects

Signature:

get(key: string, options?: R2GetOptions): Promise<R2ObjectBody | null>

Basic Usage:

// Get full object
const object = await env.MY_BUCKET.get('file.txt');

if (!object) {
  return c.json({ error: 'Not found' }, 404);
}

// Return as response
return new Response(object.body, {
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': object.httpMetadata?.contentType || 'application/octet-stream',
    'ETag': object.httpEtag,
  },
});

Read as Different Formats:

const object = await env.MY_BUCKET.get('data.json');

if (object) {
  const text = await object.text();           // As string
  const json = await object.json();           // As JSON object
  const buffer = await object.arrayBuffer();  // As ArrayBuffer
  const blob = await object.blob();           // As Blob
}

Range Requests (Partial Downloads):

// Get first 1MB of file
const object = await env.MY_BUCKET.get('large-file.mp4', {
  range: { offset: 0, length: 1024 * 1024 },
});

// Get bytes 100-200
const object = await env.MY_BUCKET.get('file.bin', {
  range: { offset: 100, length: 100 },
});

// Get from offset to end
const object = await env.MY_BUCKET.get('file.bin', {
  range: { offset: 1000 },
});

Conditional Downloads:

// Only download if etag matches
const object = await env.MY_BUCKET.get('file.txt', {
  onlyIf: {
    etagMatches: cachedEtag,
  },
});

if (!object) {
  // Etag didn't match, file was modified
  return c.json({ error: 'File changed' }, 412);
}

head() - Get Metadata Only

Signature:

head(key: string): Promise<R2Object | null>

Usage:

// Get object metadata without downloading body
const object = await env.MY_BUCKET.head('file.txt');

if (object) {
  console.log({
    key: object.key,
    size: object.size,
    etag: object.etag,
    uploaded: object.uploaded,
    contentType: object.httpMetadata?.contentType,
    customMetadata: object.customMetadata,
  });
}

Use Cases:

• Check if file exists
• Get file size before downloading
• Check last modified date
• Validate etag for caching

delete() - Delete Objects

Signature:

delete(key: string | string[]): Promise<void>

Single Delete:

// Delete single object
await env.MY_BUCKET.delete('file.txt');

// No error if file doesn't exist (idempotent)

Bulk Delete (Up to 1000 keys):

// Delete multiple objects at once
const keysToDelete = [
  'old-file-1.txt',
  'old-file-2.txt',
  'temp/cache-data.json',
];

await env.MY_BUCKET.delete(keysToDelete);

// Much faster than individual deletes

Delete with Confirmation:

app.delete('/files/:filename', async (c) => {
  const filename = c.req.param('filename');

  // Check if exists first
  const exists = await c.env.MY_BUCKET.head(filename);

  if (!exists) {
    return c.json({ error: 'Fi