How to store your videos on Google Cloud Storage and deliver them via SmartVideo.
Use a dedicated bucket containing only videos you intend to publish. Granting allUsers Storage Object Viewer makes every object in the bucket publicly readable and lets anyone list the bucket’s contents. Do not use a bucket containing private files. Google documents this exposure in Make data public.
The clips below show an older interface; follow the written steps for current labels.
- From the Cloud Storage Buckets page, click Create and configure a new, dedicated bucket. In Choose how to control access to objects, clear the option to enforce public access prevention and select uniform bucket-level access, then finish creating the bucket. See Google’s Create a bucket guide. Uniform bucket-level access uses IAM instead of object ACLs; you do not set individual file ACLs in this flow.
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Open the bucket’s Permissions tab. If public access prevention is enforced on the bucket, use Allow public access in the Public access card, then Confirm, as described in Use public access prevention. This does not override prevention inherited from a project, folder, or organization. If organization policy blocks public access, ask your administrator whether an exception is permitted; otherwise, upload the video to the SmartVideo Library instead, if your plan includes it. Do not weaken policy on a bucket containing private data.
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Still on the Permissions tab, click Grant access. Enter
allUsersin New principals, select Storage Object Viewer in Select a role, then click Save and Allow public access. These are Google’s public-bucket steps; the permission applies to all objects, including future uploads. -
Switch to the Objects tab and either drag your video into the main pane or click Upload > Upload files, following Google’s upload guide.
- Once the upload finishes, use Copy URL in the object’s public access column, as shown in Google’s public-access guide. Do not copy the console address or a right-click link that requires sign-in. The direct public URL has the form
https://storage.googleapis.com/<bucket>/<object-name>.
Open the copied URL in a signed-out or private browser window. It must return the video itself without a login or cookies, not a console page. If access is denied, check allUsers permissions and whether a project, folder, or organization policy enforces public access prevention before continuing.
6a. If you are using our WordPress plugin, use the copied URL as the video source. See the WordPress video guide for the plugin steps.
6b. On another CMS, use the copied URL as the source in a SmartVideo tag.
No bucket CORS change is needed for SmartVideo’s server-side import or plain video playback without crossorigin. Before conversion finishes, the player can play directly from your original URL. If your SmartVideo tag has a direct-child <track> element, SmartVideo sets crossorigin="anonymous"; original-source playback then requires the source bucket to allow cross-origin GET requests from your website. The same applies if you set crossorigin yourself. Follow Google’s CORS documentation for that setup. CORS does not grant public read access or bypass public access prevention.
A video usually takes about as long as it runs to convert, and longer when our encoders are busy. Keep the original video in the bucket and its URL public for as long as the video is embedded. SmartVideo re-fetches the original for fallback playback and re-conversion, so keeping it accessible is required, not just a backup precaution.