Azure Storage & Azure Blob Storage Explorer (Blob, Queue, Table, Azurite)

Azure Storage & Azure Blob Storage Explorer (Blob, Queue, Table, Azurite), a VS Code extension by Zovo

Browse Azure Blob Storage, Queue Storage and Table Storage in VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf and GitHub Codespaces. Connect with a connection string, an account name and key, a SAS URL, Azurite in one click, or Microsoft Entra ID. No Azure sign-in is needed and no desktop app. Free, no telemetry. It connects only to the storage endpoints you add.

Free, MIT license. Needs VS Code 1.90.0 or newer. Extension ID zovo.zovo-azure-storage-explorer, version 0.1.3.

Not made by or affiliated with Microsoft. "Azure" is a Microsoft trademark; this is an independent extension by Zovo.

Questions people ask

What it does

• Connect in seconds: Paste a connection string or a SAS URL (account or container), type an account name and key, or click "Connect to Azurite". Entra ID is optional and uses the Microsoft sign-in that VS Code already has. Keys and SAS tokens stay in your OS keychain.
• Browse big containers: Containers, folders by / and blobs load 1,000 at a time with a "Load more" row. Each blob shows its size, access tier and last change. ADLS Gen2 accounts (hierarchical namespace) show their real folders, empty ones too.
• Open blobs: Text and JSON open in an editor tab, and Save writes them back (only if nobody changed the blob in the meantime). A 50 MB log asks first, then shows the first 1 MB with one range request. PDF, Excel, CSV, Parquet, images and other files open in the matching viewer.
• Upload and download with a transfer queue: Drag files or folders from your desktop onto a container or folder. Big files go up in 8 MB blocks, streamed from disk, with progress, Cancel and Retry for each file. Downloads stream to disk. Memory stays flat even for a 2 GB file.
• Manage blobs: Copy URL, generate a SAS URL with the permissions and expiry you pick, set Content-Type and Cache-Control, change the access tier (Hot, Cool, Cold, Archive), rename by server-side copy, and delete. Every delete lists the blobs and says whether soft delete can bring them back.
• Queues: Peek up to 32 messages without changing them, send (plain text or Base64 for Azure Functions), dequeue the next message, clear a queue. Base64 messages are shown decoded.
• Tables: Query with an OData filter, see entities in a grid with their types, double-click a cell to edit it, add and delete entities. Results load 500 at a time.
• Read-only switch: Mark a connection read-only (production, for example) and nothing can be changed from it.

Connections

Nothing connects when VS Code starts. A connection is used the first time you expand it.

Why this one

These are reviews and open issues of Microsoft's Azure Storage extension, the most installed one. This extension is not a replacement for it and does not come from Microsoft; it is a smaller tool for the jobs below.

Cursor, Windsurf and VSCodium users install it from Open VSX, where Microsoft's extension is not listed.

Large files and safety

• Uploads: streamed from disk in blocks (8 MB, larger for huge files, at most 50,000 blocks), 4 blocks at a time, 3 files at a time. Downloads stream into a .part file that gets its real name only when complete.
• Downloads never write outside the folder you chose: a blob named ../../.ssh/config is skipped and listed.
• Every delete, overwrite, dequeue and queue clear asks first. Deleting a container asks you to type its name.
• An archived blob is never downloaded by mistake: opening it tells you to change its tier first.
• Requests that get no answer are retried, then shown as an error after 30 seconds (setting).

Free and Pro

Connecting, browsing, opening, editing, upload, download, the transfer queue, SAS URLs, properties, tiers, rename, delete, queues and tables are free, with no limits.

Zovo Pro adds 2 tools for professional work, each with 3 free tries:

• Folder sync with a dry run: compares a local folder with a container or folder, shows what is new, changed or missing, then copies only the differences (mirror mode deletes extras after you confirm the list).
• Usage and cost report: size, blob count and an estimated monthly cost per folder and access tier, plus the 10 largest blobs.

Zovo Pro is USD 19 once and unlocks Pro in every Zovo VS Code extension: the "$19 one time" tier on GitHub Sponsors, then "Unlock Zovo Pro with GitHub Sponsors"; or PayPal with a license key by email ("Pay for Zovo Pro with PayPal"). There are no popups: Pro is mentioned only when you start a Pro tool.

Privacy

• Network: only the storage endpoints of the connections you add. With Entra ID, also Microsoft sign-in through VS Code. With "Start Azurite in a Terminal", npm downloads Azurite in that terminal.
• One call to GitHub only when you choose "Unlock Zovo Pro with GitHub Sponsors". A license key is checked on your computer.
• No telemetry, no analytics, no account.

Settings

How it was tested

• Unit tests for connection strings, SAS URLs, paths, the transfer queue, table types and the Pro gate.
• Integration tests against Azurite: paging, Unicode and space names, streamed upload and download, SAS URLs, tiers, rename, queues and tables.
• A gate in a real VS Code with the packaged extension, on Azurite: real PDF, PNG, CSV, Parquet, XLSX and JSON files, 10,000 blobs in one folder, a 2 GB file up and down, a queue with 1,000 messages, a table with 50,000 entities, a wrong key, an expired SAS URL, Azurite stopped during an upload, and blob names with .. and %2F.
• A check in VS Code's server inside a Linux container (openvscode-server, opened in a browser, the same split as Codespaces): "Azurite on another host", containers, folders, a JSON blob in an editor tab, the queue and table pages.
• The Azure SDK code also ran on Node 20, the runtime of VS Code 1.90.
• No test used a real Azure account.

Guides

• Browse Azurite from a Dev Container or Codespace