Exporting Data

You can export images, map tiles, tables and video from Earth Engine. The exports can be sent to your Google Drive account, to Google Cloud Storage or to a new Earth Engine asset.

To use Google Cloud Storage (a fee-based service), you'll need to set up a project, enable billing for the project, and create a storage bucket. See the Cloud Storage Quickstart page for instructions. See this guide for information on storage bucket naming. Data exported to a Cloud Storage bucket will have the bucket's default object Access Control List (ACL). You must have write permission for the specified bucket.

The following sections describe each type of export in detail.

Exporting images

You can export images from Earth Engine in GeoTIFF or TFRecord format. See Configuration Parameters for more output options.

Example Setup

Start by defining the image data that will be exported:

// Load a landsat image and select three bands.
var landsat = ee.Image('LANDSAT/LC08/C01/T1_TOA/LC08_123032_20140515')
  .select(['B4', 'B3', 'B2']);

// Create a geometry representing an export region.
var geometry = ee.Geometry.Rectangle([116.2621, 39.8412, 116.4849, 40.01236]);

Next define the projection parameters that will be used in the following exports. We use the crs parameter to specify the coordinate system, and the crsTransform parameter to precisely specify the pixel grid. The crsTransform parameter is a list of parameters from an affine transformation matrix in row-major order [xScale, xShearing, xTranslation, yShearing, yScale, yTranslation]. An image's origin is defined by the xTranslation and yTranslation values, and the image's pixel size is defined by the xScale and yScale values. See examples of affine matrices.

// Retrieve the projection information from a band of the original image.
// Call getInfo() on the projection to request a client-side object containing
// the crs and transform information needed for the client-side Export function.
var projection = landsat.select('B2').projection().getInfo();

to Drive

To export an image to your Drive account, use Export.image.toDrive(). For example, to export portions of a Landsat image, define a region to export, then call Export.image.toDrive():

// Export the image, specifying the CRS, transform, and region.
Export.image.toDrive({
  image: landsat,
  description: 'imageToDriveExample_transform',
  crs: projection.crs,
  crsTransform: projection.transform,
  region: geometry
});

When this code is run, an export task will be created in the Code Editor Tasks tab. Click the Run button next to the task to start it. (Learn more about the Task Manager from the Code Editor section). The image will be created in your Drive account with the specified fileFormat.

to Cloud Storage

To export an image to a Google Cloud Storage bucket, use Export.image.toCloudStorage(). To export the Landsat image in the previous example to Cloud Storage instead of Drive, use:

// Export the image to Cloud Storage.
Export.image.toCloudStorage({
  image: landsat,
  description: 'imageToCloudExample',
  bucket: 'your-bucket-name',
  fileNamePrefix: 'exampleExport',
  crs: projection.crs,
  crsTransform: projection.transform,
  region: geometry
});

As with exports to Drive, start the export from the Tasks tab.

to Asset

To export an image to an asset in your Earth Engine assets folder, use Export.image.toAsset(). To manage your Earth Engine assets, or check how much of your storage quota is in use, use the Asset Manager. The following example illustrates exporting portions of a Landsat image using different pyramiding policies for the same band. The pyramiding policy indicates how Earth Engine computes lower-resolution versions of the asset. Learn more about how Earth Engine handles multiple resolutions in the scale doc.

// Get band 4 from the Landsat image, copy it.
var band4 = landsat.select('B4').rename('b4_mean')
  .addBands(landsat.select('B4').rename('b4_sample'))
  .addBands(landsat.select('B4').rename('b4_max'));

// Export the image to an Earth Engine asset.
Export.image.toAsset({
  image: band4,
  description: 'imageToAssetExample',
  assetId: 'exampleExport',
  crs: projection.crs,
  crsTransform: projection.transform,
  region: geometry,
  pyramidingPolicy: {
    'b4_mean': 'mean',
    'b4_sample': 'sample',
    'b4_max': 'max'
  }
});

You can provide a default pyramiding policy for every band that isn't explicitly specified by using the '.default' key. You may also pass in just the '.default' key. For example, to make all bands default to the 'sample' pyramiding policy, use {'.default': 'sample'}.

Configuration parameters

Observe that the dictionary of configuration parameters passed to Export.image includes scale (in meters) and the export region as an ee.Geometry. The exported image will cover the specified region with pixels at the specified scale. If not explicitly specified, the CRS of the output will be taken from the first band of the image to be exported.

You may also specify the dimensions, crs and/or crsTransform of the exported image. See the glossary for more information on crs and crsTransform. For example, to get a block of pixels precisely aligned to another data source, specify dimensions, crs and crsTransform. To get a block of pixels of predefined size (for example a 256x256 thumbnail image) that covers a region, specify dimensions and region.

You can specify image output format (if the destination is not toAsset()) with the fileFormat parameter ('GeoTIFF' by default).

formatOptions parameter

Other configuration options are set with the formatOptions parameter, which should be a dictionary keyed by other format options, specific to each fileFormat as described below.

GeoTiff

to export a cloud optimized GeoTIFF, pass a JavaScript literal for formatOptions in which the cloudOptimized key is set to true. Continuing the previous example:

// Export a cloud-optimized GeoTIFF.
Export.image.toDrive({
  image: landsat,
  description: 'imageToCOGeoTiffExample',
  crs: projection.crs,
  crsTransform: projection.transform,
  region: geometry,
  fileFormat: 'GeoTIFF',
  formatOptions: {
    cloudOptimized: true
  }
});

Cloud optimized GeoTIFFs can be reloaded from Cloud Storage into an Image. See the Image overview docs for details.

TFRecord

See this page.

maxPixels

The maxPixels parameter is intended to prevent very large exports from inadvertently being created. If the default value is too low for your intended output image, you can increase maxPixels. For example:

Export.image.toDrive({
  image: landsat,
  description: 'maxPixelsExample',
  crs: projection.crs,
  crsTransform: projection.transform,
  region: geometry,
  maxPixels: 1e9
});

Large file exports

If the output image is large, it will be exported as multiple files. If you are exporting to GeoTIFF(s), the image is split into tiles. The filename of each tile will be in the form baseFilename-yMin-xMin where xMin and yMin are the coordinates of each tile within the overall bounding box of the exported image.

If you are exporting to TFRecord, the files will be appended by -00000, -00001,... -0000N for N+1 files. Maintaining this order is important if you intend to perform inference on the files and upload the predictions back to Earth Engine as an image. See uploading images as TFRecord files for details.

Exporting images as they appear in the Code Editor

To export imagery as rendered on screen in Earth Engine, create visualization images as demonstrated in the Visualization images and the Compositing and Mosaicking sections. Since the Code Editor uses the 'EPSG:3857' CRS, specify a CRS of 'EPSG:3857' in the export to get an image in the same projection as that displayed in the Code Editor map. See the section on configuring image exports for details on specifying the resolution and coordinate system of the output.

Exporting tables and vector data

You can export a FeatureCollection as CSV, SHP (shapefile), GeoJSON, KML, KMZ or TFRecord using Export.table. The FeatureCollection may represent vectors or simply a table of data. In the latter case, the features in the collection will have null geometry.

Note some additional constraints when working with some file formats, including:

• KML: A FeatureCollection exported to a KML file will have all the geometries transformed to unprojected (WGS84) coordinates.
• SHP: A FeatureCollection exported to a Shapefile must contain features with the same geometry type and projection and must fit within the Shapefile size limits. Column names are truncated to 10 characters or fewer, and this must not create duplicate column names.
• TFRecord: See this page.

to Drive

To export a FeatureCollection to your Drive account, use Export.table.toDrive(). For example:

// Make a collection of points.
var features = ee.FeatureCollection([
  ee.Feature(ee.Geometry.Point(30.41, 59.933), {name: 'Voronoi'}),
  ee.Feature(ee.Geometry.Point(-73.96, 40.781), {name: 'Thiessen'}),
  ee.Feature(ee.Geometry.Point(6.4806, 50.8012), {name: 'Dirichlet'})
]);

// Export the FeatureCollection to a KML file.
Export.table.toDrive({
  collection: features,
  description:'vectorsToDriveExample',
  fileFormat: 'KML'
});

Note that the output format is specified as KML to handle geographic data (SHP would also be appropriate for exporting a table with geometry). To export just a table of data, without any geographic information, export features with null geometry in CSV format. The following demonstrates using Export.table.toDrive() to get the results of a potentially long running reduction:

// Load a Landsat TOA image.
var image = ee.Image('LANDSAT/LC08/T1_TOA/LC08_044034_20140318');

// Create an arbitrary rectangle.
var region = ee.Geometry.Rectangle(-122.2806, 37.1209, -122.0554, 37.2413);

// Get a dictionary of means in the region.
var means = image.reduceRegion({
  reducer: ee.Reducer.mean(),
  geometry: region,
  crs: projection.crs,
  crsTransform: projection.transform,
});

// Make a feature without geometry and set the properties to the dictionary of means.
var feature = ee.Feature(null, means);

// Wrap the Feature in a FeatureCollection for export.
var featureCollection = ee.FeatureCollection([feature]);

// Export the FeatureCollection.
Export.table.toDrive({
  collection: featureCollection,
  description: 'exportTableExample',
  fileFormat: 'CSV'
});

Note that the format is set to ‘CSV’ in this example since there is no geometry in the output.

to Cloud Storage

To export a FeatureCollection to Cloud Storage, use Export.table.toCloudStorage(). For example, using the features defined previously:

// Export a KML file to Cloud Storage.
Export.table.toCloudStorage({
  collection: features,
  description:'vectorsToCloudStorageExample',
  bucket: 'your-bucket-name',
  fileNamePrefix: 'exampleTableExport',
  fileFormat: 'KML'
});

to Asset

To export a FeatureCollection as an Earth Engine asset, use Export.table.toAsset(). For example, using the features defined previously:

// Export an ee.FeatureCollection as an Earth Engine asset.
Export.table.toAsset({
  collection: features,
  description:'exportToTableAssetExample',
  assetId: 'exampleAssetId',
});

There are several limitations on the size and shape of Earth Engine table assets:

• Maximum of 100 million features
• Maximum of 1000 properties (columns)
• Maximum of 100,000 vertices for each row's geometry
• Maximum of 100,000 characters per string value

Exporting video

To export ordered image collections as video, where frames are defined by images in the collection, use Export.video(). You can configure the way the ImageCollection is turned into video by setting frame rate, scale and dimensions. The video will be encoded as an MP4.

to Drive

Export video to your Drive account with Export.video.toDrive(). For example, the following export makes a video from 20 years of Landsat imagery:

// Load a Landsat 5 image collection.
var collection = ee.ImageCollection('LANDSAT/LT05/C01/T1_TOA')
  // San Francisco Bay.
  .filter(ee.Filter.eq('WRS_PATH', 44))
  .filter(ee.Filter.eq('WRS_ROW', 34))
  // Filter cloudy scenes.
  .filter(ee.Filter.lt('CLOUD_COVER', 30))
  // Get 20 years of imagery.
  .filterDate('1991-01-01','2011-12-30')
  // Need to have 3-band imagery for the video.
  .select(['B4', 'B3', 'B2'])
  // Need to make the data 8-bit.
  .map(function(image) {
    return image.multiply(512).uint8();
  });

// Define an area to export.
var polygon = ee.Geometry.Rectangle([-122.7286, 37.6325, -122.0241, 37.9592]);

// Export (change dimensions or scale for higher quality).
Export.video.toDrive({
  collection: collection,
  description: 'sfVideoExample',
  dimensions: 720,
  framesPerSecond: 12,
  region: polygon
});

Note that the frame rate and dimensions can be set from a dictionary of parameters passed to the export. Adjust these parameters to customize the video. Also note that the input ImageCollection is required to have 3-band (RGB), 8-bit images. In this example, the 8-bit, 3-band format is explicitly set. Alternatively, map a function which calls image.visualize() over the collection. See the section on Visualization images for details. Video exports can take a significant amount of time to complete, so it's not unusual to see the export task running for an extended period.

to Cloud Storage

To export a video to Cloud Storage, use Export.video.toCloudStorage(). For example, using the ImageCollection from the previous example:

// Export video to cloud storage.
Export.video.toCloudStorage({
  collection: collection,
  description: 'sfVideoExampleToCloud',
  bucket: 'your-bucket-name',
  dimensions: 720,
  framesPerSecond: 12,
  region: polygon
});

Exporting Map Tiles

For information on exporting map tiles and displaying them in Google Earth and Maps, see Exporting Map Tiles.