File management

The Cloud Shell supports transferring files between the VM and your local machine, which can be handy for things like uploading scripts and downloading results. This can be done via the Cloud Shell UI under the More Settings | Upload/Download File buttons. Downloads can also be done from within the shell by using the included cloudshell command as cloudshell download <FILENAME ...>, a useful option when looking to automate tasks via scripts.

While this makes uploading and downloading files easy and convenient, an often better way to manage files is by moving them to Cloud Storage, as we'll see in Chapter 10, Google Cloud Storage. This is extremely true for large files due to the 5 GB limit on the $HOME directory.