Manage Azure Data Lake Store resources by using Storage Explorer

  • 6 minutes to read
  • Contributors
    • Jenny Jiang
    • Jonathan Gao
    • Kun Tan (Beyondsoft)

Azure Data Lake Store is a service for storing large amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary data. You can get access to the data from anywhere via HTTP or HTTPS. Data Lake Store in Azure Storage Explorer enables you to access and manage Data Lake Store data and resources, along with other Azure entities like blobs and queues. Now you can use the same tool to manage your different Azure entities in one place.

Another advantage is that you don't need to have subscription permission to manage Data Lake Store data. In Storage Explorer, you can attach the Data Lake Store path to the Local and Attached node as long as someone grants the permission.

Prerequisites

To complete the steps in this article, you need the following prerequisites:

Install Storage Explorer

Install the newest Azure Storage Explorer bits from the product webpage. The installation supports Windows, Linux, and Mac versions.

Connect to an Azure subscription

  1. In Storage Explorer, select the plug-in icon on the left.

    Plug-in icon

  2. Select Add an Azure Account, and then select Sign-in.

    "Connect to Azure Storage" dialog box

  3. In the Sign in to your account dialog box, enter your Azure credentials.

    Dialog box for Azure sign-in

  4. Select your subscription from the list, and then select Apply.

    Subscription information and "Apply" button

    The EXPLORER pane is updated and displays the accounts in the selected subscription.

    Account list

You have successfully connected Azure Data Lake Store to your Azure subscription.

Connect to Data Lake Store

You can access resources that don't exist in your subscription if someone gives you the URI for the resources. You can then connect to Data Lake Store by using the URI after you sign in.

  1. Open Storage Explorer.
  2. In the left pane, expand Local and Attached.

  3. Right-click Data Lake Store, and then select Connect to Data Lake Store.

    "Connect to Data Lake Store" on the shortcut menu

  4. Enter the URI. The tool browses to the location of the URL that you just entered.

    "Connect to Data Lake Store" dialog box, with the text box for entering the URI

    Result of connecting to Data Lake Store

View an Azure Data Lake Store account's contents

An Azure Data Lake Store account's resources contain folders and files.

The following steps illustrate how to view the contents of a Data Lake Store account within Storage Explorer:

  1. Open Storage Explorer.
  2. In the left pane, expand the subscription that contains the Azure Data Lake Store account that you want to view.
  3. Expand Data Lake Store.

  4. Right-click the Azure Data Lake Store account node that you want to view, and then select Open. You can also double-click the Data Lake Store account to open it.

    The main pane displays the Data Lake Store account's contents.

    Main pane with a list of folders

Manage resources in Azure Data Lake Store

You can manage Azure Data Lake Store resources by doing following operations:

  • Browse through Data Lake Store resources across multiple Azure Data Lake accounts.
  • Use a connection string to connect to and manage Data Lake Store directly.
  • View Data Lake Store resources shared by others through an ACL under Local and Attached.
  • Perform file and folder CRUD operations: support recursive folders and multi-selected files.
  • Drag, drop, and add a folder to quickly access recent locations. This operation mirrors the desktop File Explorer experience.
  • Copy and open an Azure Data Lake hyperlink in Storage Explorer with one click.
  • Display Activity Log in the lower-right pane to view activity status.
  • Display folder statistics and file properties.

Manage resources in Azure Storage Explorer

After you create an Azure Data Lake Store account, you can:

  • Upload folders and files, download folders and files, and open resources on your local computer.
  • Pin to Quick Access, create a new folder, copy a URL, and select all.
  • Copy and paste, rename, delete, get folder statistics, and refresh.

The following items illustrate how to manage resources within an Azure Data Lake Store account. Follow the steps for the task that you want to perform.

Upload files

  1. On the main pane's toolbar, select Upload, and then select Upload Files on the drop-down menu.

    "Upload Files" menu item

  2. In the Select files to upload dialog box, select the files that you want to upload.

    Dialog box for uploading files

  3. Select Open to begin the upload.

Upload a folder

  1. On the main pane's toolbar, select Upload, and then select Upload Folder on the drop-down menu.

    "Upload Folder" menu item

  2. In the Select folder to upload dialog box, select a folder that you want to upload. Then click Select Folder.

    Dialog box for uploading folders

    The upload starts.

    Dialog box with the upload in progress

Note

You can directly drag the folders and files on a local computer to start uploading.

Download folders or files to your local computer

  1. Select the folders or files that you want to download.
  2. On the main pane's toolbar, select Download.
  3. In the Select a folder to save the downloaded files into dialog box, specify the location and the name.
  4. Select Save.

Open a folder or file from your local computer

  1. Select the folder or file that you want to open.
  2. On the main pane's toolbar, select Open. Or right-click the selected folder or file, and then select Open on the shortcut menu.

The file is downloaded and opened through the application that's associated with the underlying file type. Or the folder is opened in the main pane.

Opened file

Copy folders or files to the clipboard

  1. Select the folders or files that you want to copy.
  2. On the main pane's toolbar, select Copy. Or right-click the selected folders or files, and then select Copy on the shortcut menu.
  3. In the left pane, browse to another Data Lake Store account, and double-click it to view it in the main pane.
  4. On the main pane's toolbar, select Paste to create a copy. Or select Paste on the destination's shortcut menu.

Selections for copying a folder

Note

Copy/paste operations across storage types are not supported. You can copy Data Lake Store folders or files and paste them in another Data Lake Store account. But you cannot copy Data Lake Store folders or files and paste them to Azure Blob storage or the other way around.

The copy/paste operation works by downloading the folders or files to the local computer and then uploading them to the destination. The tool does not perform the action in the back end. The copy/paste operation on large files is slow. The optimization of high-performance file copy/move is underway.

Delete folders or files

  1. Select the folders or files that you want to delete.
  2. On the main pane's toolbar, select Delete. Or right-click the selected folders or files, and then select Delete on the shortcut menu.
  3. Select Yes in the confirmation dialog box.

Selections for deleting a folder

Pin to Quick Access

  1. Select the folder that you want to pin.

  2. On the main pane's toolbar, select Pin to Quick access.

    In the left pane, the selected folder is added to the Quick Access node.

    Selections for pinning a folder to "Quick Access"

After you pin a folder to the Quick Access node, you can easily access the resources.

If you have a URL, you can enter the URL into the address path in File Explorer or a browser. Then Storage Explorer.exe runs automatically to go to the location of the URL.

Deep link in File Explorer

Next steps