How to use earthaccess to get the data access links for granules returned from a query

Author

Mikala Beig

Published

February 13, 2026

Problem

How can I use earthaccess to find the data access links for the files that were returned in my earthaccess.search_data() query?

Solution

Below is an example query that applies a spatial filter over the Juneau ice field in Alaska for a specific time period:

import earthaccess

files = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name = 'ATL06',
    version = '006',
    bounding_box = (-134.7,58.9,-133.9,59.2),
    temporal = ('2020-03-01','2020-04-30'),
)

[granule.data_links(access="direct") for granule in files]

[['s3://nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/03/10/ATL06_20200310121504_11420606_007_01.h5'],
 ['s3://nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/03/12/ATL06_20200312233336_11800602_007_01.h5'],
 ['s3://nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/04/10/ATL06_20200410220936_02350702_007_01.h5'],
 ['s3://nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/04/12/ATL06_20200412104246_02580706_007_01.h5']]

[granule.data_links(access="https") for granule in files]

[['https://data.nsidc.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/03/10/ATL06_20200310121504_11420606_007_01.h5'],
 ['https://data.nsidc.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/03/12/ATL06_20200312233336_11800602_007_01.h5'],
 ['https://data.nsidc.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/04/10/ATL06_20200410220936_02350702_007_01.h5'],
 ['https://data.nsidc.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/04/12/ATL06_20200412104246_02580706_007_01.h5']]

Note that a list of lists is returned. To get the urls as strings in a single list, add a first index to the method call.

[granule.data_links(access="direct")[0] for granule in files]

['s3://nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/03/10/ATL06_20200310121504_11420606_007_01.h5',
 's3://nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/03/12/ATL06_20200312233336_11800602_007_01.h5',
 's3://nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/04/10/ATL06_20200410220936_02350702_007_01.h5',
 's3://nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/04/12/ATL06_20200412104246_02580706_007_01.h5']

[granule.data_links(access="https")[0] for granule in files]

['https://data.nsidc.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/03/10/ATL06_20200310121504_11420606_007_01.h5',
 'https://data.nsidc.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/03/12/ATL06_20200312233336_11800602_007_01.h5',
 'https://data.nsidc.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/04/10/ATL06_20200410220936_02350702_007_01.h5',
 'https://data.nsidc.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/nsidc-cumulus-prod-protected/ATLAS/ATL06/007/2020/04/12/ATL06_20200412104246_02580706_007_01.h5']

Discussion

The “https” links enable data download with no egress charges to the data user. “S3” object urls can be used for direct S3 access within AWS region us-west-2. Parsing the urls is also a way to get at the filenames for your granule query results.