Move Data from One Firestore Project to Another - Permission Denied

This cost me so much time, export data and importing it into another firestore project.

Making this because I lost so much time myself on this.

I wanted to export a collection and import it into another Firestore database in another project.

I followed all these guides:

• Export and Import Entities
• Firestore Export and Import
• Move Data Between Firestore Projects

I also checked these discussions:

• Stack Overflow: gcloud firestore import permission denied
• Google Cloud Community: Firestore Backup and Restore

Some of these articles alluded to my fix but weren't completely clear. Here's what I did:

🛠️ Steps to Move Data

1. Ownership: I was the owner of both projects which might be nescessary.
2. Export Collection: Export the collection to a new storage bucket in the source project. (Note: This might not be necessary; you might be able to export directly to the existing Firestore if you prefer.)
3. Add Permissions to Service Account:
   • Find the service account with a long number by going to the destination project bucket, then permissions.
   • This account will not show up under the destination project's IAM.
   • Look for the service account in this format: service-[LONG_FKN_NUMBER]@gcp-sa-firestore.iam.gserviceaccount.com.
   • Allow this service account access to the source bucket.

gsutil iam ch serviceAccount:service-[LONG_FKN_NUMBER]@gcp-sa-firestore.iam.gserviceaccount.com:legacyBucketReader,legacyObjectReader \
gs://[SOURCE_BUCKET]

4. Import Data: Once the permissions are set correctly, the import should work.

👋 Laaater

By following these steps, you should be able to move your Firestore data between projects without encountering permission issues.

Happy coding!