Use the uuid.New() method to generate a UUID in Golang. To use the UUID in Golang, import the third-party package “uuid”. This package is based on the github.com/google/uuid package.
UUID stands for Universally Unique Identifier. It is a 128-bit value used for a unique identification Foundation. UUIDs provide uniqueness as it generates ids based on time, cursor movement, and system hardware (MAC, etc.).
How to Install UUID package in Golang
Follow the below steps to install the UUID package in Golang.
- Create a project folder and go inside that folder.
- Open the terminal and initialize a Golang project using this command: go mod init gfg.
- Install the UUID package using this command: go get github.com/google/uuid
That’s it. Now, the package is installed in your project folder.
Now, you can import the package using this code: import(“github.com/google/uuid“).
How to Use UUID Package to generate UUID
To generate a UUID using the github.com/google/uuid package in Go, you can use the uuid.New() function. The uuid.New() function generates a new UUID of version 4, a randomly generated UUID.
The New() function returns a uuid.UUID value which contains the generated UUID.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"github.com/google/uuid"
)
func main() {
uuid := uuid.New()
fmt.Println("UUID:", uuid)
}
Output
UUID: d8b60078-5638-4840-8637-f9e3f638f5c5
In this code example, we import the github.com/google/uuid package and call the uuid.New() function to generate a new UUID. The New() function returns a uuid.UUID value which contains the generated UUID.
Golang uuid.New().String()
Go uuid.New().String() function generates a new UUID of version 4 and returns it as a string.
The github.com/google/uuid package provides the uuid.New() function that returns a new UUID of version 4, randomly generated. The String() method returns the UUID as a string.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"github.com/google/uuid"
)
func main() {
uuidString := uuid.New().String()
fmt.Println("UUID_STRING:", uuidString)
}
Output
UUID_STRING: 40f65007-beb6-4457-a0c2-fa81f009bec6
In the code example, we called uuid.New() function to generate a new UUID, and then we call String() to return the UUID as a string. The uuidString variable will contain the UUID as a string.
Conclusion
You can generate UUIDs using the github.com/google/uuid package, which provides functions like uuid.New() and uuid.New().String() functions to generate version 1 and version 4 UUIDs. The generated UUIDs can be returned values or as strings.

Krunal Lathiya is a Software Engineer with over eight years of experience. He has developed a strong foundation in computer science principles and a passion for problem-solving. In addition, Krunal has excellent knowledge of Distributed and cloud computing and is an expert in Go Language.