When using HTTP, GCS decompresses gzip-encoded objects by default:
https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/transcoding
``` Setting this option to `gzip` disables automatic decompression. This can be useful for applications wanting to operate with the compressed data. Setting this option to `identity`, or not setting this option, returns decompressed data.
<aside class="note"><b>Note:</b>
Note that decompressive transcoding only apply to objects that are compressed with `gzip` and have their `content_encoding()` attribute set accordingly. At the time of this writing GCS does not decompress objects stored with other compression algorithms, nor does it detect the object compression based on the object name or its contents.
</aside>
###### See Also
[`AcceptEncodingGzip()`](xref:namespacegoogle_1_1cloud_1_1storage_1abb76cc18ed021b748ead4a4845b9b81e) is a helper function to disable decompressive encoding.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-04-01 UTC."],[[["The page provides documentation for various versions of `structgoogle::cloud::storage::AcceptEncoding`, ranging from version 2.11.0 to the latest release candidate 2.37.0-rc."],["The primary function of `AcceptEncoding` is to modify the accepted encodings for data retrieval, with the ability to disable default gzip decompression."],["GCS automatically decompresses gzip-encoded objects during HTTP retrieval, unless this option is specifically disabled."],["Decompressive transcoding only applies to objects compressed with gzip that have the corresponding `content_encoding()` attribute set."],["The function `AcceptEncodingGzip()` is available as a helper to easily disable decompressive encoding for specific use cases."]]],[]]