Azure Blob Storage, from your desktop
Your storage account assumes you will write the script
Change a tier, rename a blob, copy a container: the portal does each of those one blob at a time. For anything larger, Azure's answer is code. AzCopy for movement, PowerShell for tiers, a lifecycle rule for the rest.
Blober does the same jobs from a selection: browse a container, pick what you mean, run it.
Blober connects from your machine with a connection string you paste in. Your keys stay on your disk.
mybloberstorage / media-thumbs / 2023
Four tiers, four minimum stays
Every tier has a minimum storage duration. Move a blob down and back up inside that window and Azure bills the days you did not use, so the cheapest tier is the one you have to be sure about.
Data you read or write often. The highest storage rate, the lowest reads.
Where backups, logs and last year's exports belong. Leave early and you pay the rest of the 30 days.
Cheaper to keep, dearer to read. For the data a compliance review opens twice a year.
Offline until you ask for it. The cheapest place to keep a terabyte, and the slowest to get back.
What the portal makes you do one at a time
Azure does all of this properly in the API. The gap is what you are handed to drive it with: a portal built for one object at a time, and a documented command line for everything else.
“I am trying to rehydrate all the contents inside a directory present in Azure archive storage but I am not able to as the option of change access tier is only available for files not for the directories in any GUI and there is no Commandlet as well.”
1 blob
per click in the portal
The tier picker in the Azure portal works on the blob you are looking at. A container is not a selection you can hand it.
10 GiB/hour
priority rehydration cap
Ask for a lot of Archive data at once and Azure queues it. Priority retrievals are capped per storage account, per hour.
$0.087/GB
out of Azure to the internet
Reading data out of Azure is billed by the gigabyte, and no client changes that. A tier change never leaves the account, so it costs nothing in egress.
PowerShell, Az.Storage, looped by hand
$ctx = New-AzStorageContext -ConnectionString $cs
foreach ($b in Get-AzStorageBlob -Container media -Context $ctx) {
Set-AzStorageBlobTier -Container media -Blob $b.Name -BlobTier Archive -Context $ctx
}The alternative, in four lines
A context to build, a subscription to be on, a blob list to pull, and a loop running on your machine until it is done. There is no bulk version of this in the portal.
Blober is the same job from a selection instead of a script: pick the container, set the target tier, run.
Tier changes are applied by the service: no download, no re-upload, no new blob version. Azure still charges the early-deletion fee if you leave a tier before its minimum is up, so check the minimums above before a bulk move.
Half a million views on six problems
Every quote below is a Stack Overflow question, quoted as written, with the score, answer count and view count the site reports. Between them they carry 72 answers, and what they recommend is usually a script or a different tool.
“Now, how to create a sub directory”
“Is is possible to rename an Azure Storage Blob using the Azure Storage API from a Web Role? The only solution I have at the moment is to copy the blob to a new blob with the correct name and delete the old one.”
“Failed to delete blob pictures/uploads/. Error: The specified blob does not exist. Could anyone shed light on how I can delete those two folders?”
“what happens if a sloppy developer (or the one under the influence of alcohol :)) accidentally deletes the storage account through the Azure Portal or the Azure Storage Explorer tool?”
“I have a 400 megabytes .zip file that I want to put into blob storage for later use. How can I do that without writing code? Is there some interface for that?”
“Is there a feature in Azure to move blobs in Hot/Cool tiers to Archive automatically if they haven't been used in a period of time? For example, if I have a blob stored in Archive, I access it by rehydrating it to Hot/Cool. Once I am done, is there a way Azure can automatically downtier it?”
What Blober gives you instead
What changes when the job is a selection instead of a script.
- Retier thousands in one run
- Select a container or a prefix, pick Hot, Cool, Cold or Archive, and run. Azure applies it to every blob in place, so nothing is downloaded and nothing is re-uploaded.
- Move data in and out, either direction
- Azure to S3, R2, Backblaze B2, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, a NAS or a local folder, and back again, with per-file progress and resume if the connection drops.
- Duplicates handled your way
- Skip a blob that is already there, or overwrite it: the choice is per run. Archived blobs are always skipped, because reading one back is not free.
- Tier and size, visible before you run
- Tier, size, last modified and metadata are in the list you are selecting from, so a 3,000-blob job starts from what is actually there.
- Your credentials stay on your disk
- Blober runs on your machine and talks to Azure with the connection string you paste in. No transfer is proxied through a server of ours.
Three steps, one run
A connection string, a container, a job.
- 1
Connect the storage account
Paste the connection string from Keys in the portal. Azure paths in Blober read the way the API does: container/path/to/blob.ext.
- 2
Select what you mean
A container, a prefix, or single blobs. A folder selection expands to the blobs inside it, so three thousand thumbnails behind one prefix are one action rather than three thousand.
- 3
Choose the job
Copy, move, delete or mutate, with per-file progress and retry. A mutation changes a tier or a container's access level where the blob already is: no download, no re-upload, no new blob version.
Limits worth knowing before you buy
Two things to plan around.
- Rehydration runs on Azure's clock
- Asking for an archived blob back queues it with Azure: up to 15 hours at standard priority, under an hour at high priority, against a per-account throughput cap. Blober sends the request; the rest is Azure's.
- Transfers use your connection
- Cross-cloud jobs stream through your machine, so speed follows your line. A tier change never leaves the account, so it moves no bytes at all.
One payment, and the rest of the bill is Azure's
Azure bills for storage, transactions and egress. Blober is a one-time licence to work the account from your desk: no per-gigabyte cut, no third party in the path of your data.
- A tier change costs you Azure's write or read transaction and nothing else, so reorganising a container uses no bandwidth at all.
- No per-file or per-gigabyte fee, and no transfer limit. Your connection and your Azure account are the only ceilings.
- Mac, Windows and Linux. Team and Enterprise licences cover more seats.
Everything we know about Azure Blob Storage
Written from the same research as this page.
- Provider referenceAzure Blob provider referenceSetup with a connection string, listing containers and blobs, uploads, downloads, deletions, tier and container-access mutations, deduplication, metadata and the limits of each.Read the reference
- How to Bulk Change Azure Blob Storage Access TiersHot, Cool, Cold and Archive, changed on selected blobs without PowerShell or a re-upload.
- How to Rehydrate Azure Archive Blobs to Hot, Cool, or ColdStandard and priority rehydration, account throughput, versions, snapshots and early deletion charges.
- How to Audit Azure Blobs by Access Tier and MetadataBlob Inventory exports a daily or weekly report of tiers, sizes, dates, versions and metadata.
- How to Move Data from Azure Blob Storage to Cloudflare R2Leave the egress bill behind, with parallel uploads and S3-compatible writes.
- How to Transfer Files from AWS S3 to Azure Blob StorageDirect S3 to Azure, with tier selection and no AzCopy scripts.
- AzCopy S3 to Azure: How It Works and the Limits to CheckServer-to-server copies, metadata, bucket-name rules, authentication and S3-compatible endpoint limits.
- Azure Blob Tiers vs AWS S3 Storage ClassesHot, Cool, Cold and Archive against S3 Standard, IA, Glacier and the Google classes.
- Cloud Storage Ingress vs Egress Fees: Which Providers Are Free?Who charges for uploads, who charges for downloads, and which workloads that decides.
Azure Blob Storage questions, answered
How do I change the access tier of many Azure blobs at once?
Connect the storage account in Blober, open the container, select the blobs or the whole container, and choose Mutate with a target tier: Hot, Cool, Cold or Archive. Azure applies the change on the service side, so nothing is downloaded and nothing is re-uploaded. The portal still does this one blob at a time, and the scripted alternative is a PowerShell loop or a lifecycle rule.
Can I rehydrate a whole folder from the Archive tier?
Yes. Azure Blob has no folders, so the folder is a prefix: select it in Blober, set the target tier to Hot, Cool or Cold, and run. Azure queues the rehydration per blob, standard priority takes up to 15 hours for blobs under 10 GB and high priority under an hour, and priority retrievals are capped at 10 GiB per hour per storage account.
How do I rename an Azure blob?
Use Blober's move action. Select the blob, set the new name or path, and run: Blober writes the blob at the new path and removes the old one, so a rename is one job from the selection you already have open.
Does a tier change re-upload my data?
No. Set Blob Tier is a service-side operation on the existing blob. Azure bills a write when the new tier is cheaper and a read when it is more expensive, and records a new last-modified date, but no bytes move and no new blob version is created. Because nothing transfers, a tier change costs you no egress.
How does Blober compare to rclone, AzCopy and Azure Storage Explorer?
Different shapes of the same APIs. rclone and AzCopy are command lines, and Storage Explorer works through one account at a time. Blober is a desktop app where the job is a selection: browse, pick, run, with transfers and tier changes in the same workflow.
Can I move Azure Blob data to another cloud, or to a NAS?
Yes. Blober connects Azure Blob to S3, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Proton Drive, pCloud and local or network drives, in either direction. Azure bills egress for data leaving its network; leaving it is exactly why a lot of this data moves. Cross-cloud transfers stream through your machine, so the speed depends on your connection.
Does Blober deduplicate, and what about archived blobs?
On write, you choose the deduplication policy per run: skip a blob that already exists with the same name, or overwrite it. Archived blobs are always skipped, whichever policy is set, because an archived blob cannot be rewritten and reading one back means rehydrating it first.
Where is my storage key kept?
Blober stores the connection string on your own machine and uses it to talk to Azure directly from there. It is not sent to us, and no transfer passes through our servers.
How much does Blober cost?
A one-time lifetime licence costs $49 during the beta launch and $89 afterwards, for one user. No subscription, no per-gigabyte or per-file charge: transfers run on your connection, against your own Azure account, and tier changes cost you nothing beyond Azure's own write or read transaction.
Retier the archive you stopped reading
Start with the container that has been sitting in Cool since 2023. Blober lists it and moves the whole thing to Archive in one run, with no script and no loop.
Download Blober