Delete a custom image

Linux Windows

You can only delete custom images that you, or someone who has access to theproject, have added.

Warning: Deleting a custom image is irreversible. You can't recover a deletedcustom image.

If you want to retain a backup of the image,export the custom image toCloud Storage before deleting it.

Before you begin

Delete a custom image

Use one of the following methods to delete the image.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to theImages page.

    Go to Images

  2. Check the box to the left of the image you want to delete.

  3. ClickDelete at the top of the page. Your image is deleted.

gcloud

Use thegcloud compute images delete commandto delete an image:

gcloud compute images deleteIMAGE_NAME

ReplaceIMAGE_NAME with the name of the image todelete.

Go

import("context""fmt""io"compute"cloud.google.com/go/compute/apiv1"computepb"cloud.google.com/go/compute/apiv1/computepb")// Deletes the specified disk imagefuncdeleteDiskImage(wio.Writer,projectID,imageNamestring,)error{// projectID := "your_project_id"// imageName := "your_image"ctx:=context.Background()imagesClient,err:=compute.NewImagesRESTClient(ctx)iferr!=nil{returnfmt.Errorf("NewImagesRESTClient: %w",err)}deferimagesClient.Close()req:=computepb.DeleteImageRequest{Image:imageName,Project:projectID,}op,err:=imagesClient.Delete(ctx,&req)iferr=op.Wait(ctx);err!=nil{returnfmt.Errorf("unable to wait for the operation: %w",err)}fmt.Fprintf(w,"Disk image %s deleted\n",imageName)returnnil}

Java

importcom.google.cloud.compute.v1.ImagesClient;importcom.google.cloud.compute.v1.Operation;importjava.io.IOException;importjava.util.concurrent.ExecutionException;importjava.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;importjava.util.concurrent.TimeoutException;publicclassDeleteImage{publicstaticvoidmain(String[]args)throwsIOException,ExecutionException,InterruptedException,TimeoutException{// TODO(developer): Replace these variables before running the sample.// Project ID or project number of the Cloud project you use.Stringproject="your-project-id";// Name of the image you want to delete.StringimageName="your-image-name";deleteImage(project,imageName);}// Deletes a disk image.publicstaticvoiddeleteImage(Stringproject,StringimageName)throwsIOException,ExecutionException,InterruptedException,TimeoutException{// Initialize client that will be used to send requests. This client only needs to be created// once, and can be reused for multiple requests. After completing all of your requests, call// the `imagesClient.close()` method on the client to safely// clean up any remaining background resources.try(ImagesClientimagesClient=ImagesClient.create()){Operationresponse=imagesClient.deleteAsync(project,imageName).get(3,TimeUnit.MINUTES);if(response.hasError()){System.out.println("Image deletion failed ! ! "+response);return;}System.out.printf("Operation Status for Image Name %s: %s ",imageName,response.getStatus());}}}

Python

from__future__importannotationsimportsysfromtypingimportAnyfromgoogle.api_core.extended_operationimportExtendedOperationfromgoogle.cloudimportcompute_v1defwait_for_extended_operation(operation:ExtendedOperation,verbose_name:str="operation",timeout:int=300)->Any:"""    Waits for the extended (long-running) operation to complete.    If the operation is successful, it will return its result.    If the operation ends with an error, an exception will be raised.    If there were any warnings during the execution of the operation    they will be printed to sys.stderr.    Args:        operation: a long-running operation you want to wait on.        verbose_name: (optional) a more verbose name of the operation,            used only during error and warning reporting.        timeout: how long (in seconds) to wait for operation to finish.            If None, wait indefinitely.    Returns:        Whatever the operation.result() returns.    Raises:        This method will raise the exception received from `operation.exception()`        or RuntimeError if there is no exception set, but there is an `error_code`        set for the `operation`.        In case of an operation taking longer than `timeout` seconds to complete,        a `concurrent.futures.TimeoutError` will be raised.    """result=operation.result(timeout=timeout)ifoperation.error_code:print(f"Error during{verbose_name}: [Code:{operation.error_code}]:{operation.error_message}",file=sys.stderr,flush=True,)print(f"Operation ID:{operation.name}",file=sys.stderr,flush=True)raiseoperation.exception()orRuntimeError(operation.error_message)ifoperation.warnings:print(f"Warnings during{verbose_name}:\n",file=sys.stderr,flush=True)forwarninginoperation.warnings:print(f" -{warning.code}:{warning.message}",file=sys.stderr,flush=True)returnresultdefdelete_image(project_id:str,image_name:str)->None:"""    Deletes a disk image.    Args:        project_id: project ID or project number of the Cloud project you use.        image_name: name of the image you want to delete.    """image_client=compute_v1.ImagesClient()operation=image_client.delete(project=project_id,image=image_name)wait_for_extended_operation(operation,"image deletion")

REST

Make aPOST request to theimages().delete method.Specify the name of the image you want to delete.

POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/global/images/RESOURCE_ID

Replace the following:

  • PROJECT_ID: the project to which the imagebelongs.
  • RESOURCE_ID: the name of the image that you wantto delete.

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Last updated 2026-02-18 UTC.