don't understand azcopy

Hello John Fabiani

AzCopy is a command-line tool for uploading, downloading, and moving data to and from Azure Storage accounts. For script-based authentication, you can set the storage account name and key as environment variables before running AzCopy commands. Microsoft also supports SAS tokens and Microsoft Entra ID authentication methods.

Here is a sample PowerShell example showing how to authenticate with a Storage Account Key and upload a file:

 $env:AZCOPY_ACCOUNT_NAME = "mystorageaccount"
$env:AZCOPY_ACCOUNT_KEY = "your-storage-account-key"
azcopy copy "C:\Data\Test.txt" `
"https://mystorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/container1/Test.txt"

Please note that Microsoft recommends SAS tokens or Microsoft Entra ID authentication for automated scripts whenever possible, since Storage Account Keys grant broad access to the entire storage account.

Check the below reference public documents:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-use-azcopy-v10

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-use-azcopy-authorize-service-principal?tabs=windows

Hope the above answer helps! Please let us know do you have any further queries.

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I wish the problem was so simple (maybe it is). I have a script that requires the cert keys to login. I am able to get the keys but I can determine where the keys go. For Info the app in question is azcopy and was working for years until it expired.