diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index 3c8f5c5..6135e0e 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ S3method(adls_filesystem,adls_endpoint)
 S3method(adls_filesystem,character)
 S3method(blob_container,blob_endpoint)
 S3method(blob_container,character)
+S3method(copy_url_to_storage,blob_container)
 S3method(create_adls_filesystem,adls_endpoint)
 S3method(create_adls_filesystem,adls_filesystem)
 S3method(create_adls_filesystem,character)
@@ -90,6 +91,8 @@ export(blob_endpoint)
 export(break_lease)
 export(call_azcopy)
 export(change_lease)
+export(copy_url_to_blob)
+export(copy_url_to_storage)
 export(create_adls_dir)
 export(create_adls_filesystem)
 export(create_azure_dir)
diff --git a/R/add_methods.R b/R/add_methods.R
index d6f9d5d..7258af8 100644
--- a/R/add_methods.R
+++ b/R/add_methods.R
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 #' @section Usage:
 #' ```
 #' create_storage_account(name, location, kind = "StorageV2", replication = "Standard_LRS",
-#'                        access_tier = "hot"), https_only = TRUE, 
+#'                        access_tier = "hot"), https_only = TRUE,
 #'                        hierarchical_namespace_enabled = FALSE, properties = list(), ...)
 #' ```
 #' @section Arguments:
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
 #' @section Details:
 #' This method deploys a new storage account resource, with parameters given by the arguments. A storage account can host multiple types of storage:
 #' - blob storage
-#' - file storage 
+#' - file storage
 #' - table storage
 #' - queue storage
 #' - Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
diff --git a/R/adls_client_funcs.R b/R/adls_client_funcs.R
index 8b1b27b..0e0d584 100644
--- a/R/adls_client_funcs.R
+++ b/R/adls_client_funcs.R
@@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ list_adls_filesystems.character <- function(endpoint, key=NULL, token=NULL, sas=
 list_adls_filesystems.adls_endpoint <- function(endpoint, ...)
 {
     lst <- do_storage_call(endpoint$url, "/", options=list(resource="account"),
-                           key=endpoint$key, token=endpoint$token,, sas=endpoint$sas,
+                           key=endpoint$key, token=endpoint$token, sas=endpoint$sas,
                            api_version=endpoint$api_version)
 
     sapply(lst$filesystems$name, function(fs) adls_filesystem(endpoint, fs), simplify=FALSE)
@@ -209,7 +209,7 @@ delete_adls_filesystem.adls_endpoint <- function(endpoint, name, confirm=TRUE, .
 #' @param filesystem An ADLSgen2 filesystem object.
 #' @param dir,file A string naming a directory or file respectively.
 #' @param info Whether to return names only, or all information in a directory listing.
-#' @param src,dest The source and destination files for uploading and downloading. Paths are allowed. For uploading, `src` can also be a [textConnection] or [rawConnection] object to allow transferring in-memory R objects without creating a temporary file.
+#' @param src,dest The source and destination paths/files for uploading and downloading. See 'Details' below.
 #' @param confirm Whether to ask for confirmation on deleting a file or directory.
 #' @param blocksize The number of bytes to upload/download per HTTP(S) request.
 #' @param lease The lease for a file, if present.
diff --git a/R/adls_transfer_internal.R b/R/adls_transfer_internal.R
index 4482c27..0cc9c6c 100644
--- a/R/adls_transfer_internal.R
+++ b/R/adls_transfer_internal.R
@@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ download_adls_file_internal <- function(filesystem, src, dest, blocksize=2^24, o
     }
     if(conn_dest)
         on.exit(seek(dest, 0))
-        
+
     # get file size (for progress bar)
     res <- do_container_op(filesystem, src, headers=headers, http_verb="HEAD", http_status_handler="pass")
     httr::stop_for_status(res, storage_error_message(res))
diff --git a/R/blob_client_funcs.R b/R/blob_client_funcs.R
index 4709b55..3b5e77c 100644
--- a/R/blob_client_funcs.R
+++ b/R/blob_client_funcs.R
@@ -225,7 +225,7 @@ delete_blob_container.blob_endpoint <- function(endpoint, name, confirm=TRUE, le
 #'
 #' @param container A blob container object.
 #' @param blob A string naming a blob.
-#' @param src,dest The source and destination files for uploading and downloading. See 'Details' below.For uploading, `src` can also be a [textConnection] or [rawConnection] object to allow transferring in-memory R objects without creating a temporary file. For downloading, 
+#' @param src,dest The source and destination files for uploading and downloading. See 'Details' below.
 #' @param info For `list_blobs`, level of detail about each blob to return: a vector of names only; the name, size and last-modified date (default); or all information.
 #' @param confirm Whether to ask for confirmation on deleting a blob.
 #' @param blocksize The number of bytes to upload/download per HTTP(S) request.
@@ -287,6 +287,11 @@ delete_blob_container.blob_endpoint <- function(endpoint, name, confirm=TRUE, le
 #' download_blob(cont, "iris.rds", con)
 #' unserialize(con)
 #'
+#' # copy from a public URL: Iris data from UCI machine learning repository
+#' copy_url_to_blob(cont,
+#'     "https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/machine-learning-databases/iris/iris.data",
+#'     "iris.csv")
+#'
 #' }
 #' @rdname blob
 #' @export
diff --git a/R/blob_copyurl.R b/R/blob_copyurl.R
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..78c421a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/R/blob_copyurl.R
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+#' @details
+#' `copy_url_to_storage` transfers the contents of the file at the specified HTTP\[S\] URL directly to storage, without requiring a temporary local copy to be made. Currently this is only implemented for blob storage.
+#' @rdname file_transfer
+#' @export
+copy_url_to_storage <- function(container, src, dest, ...)
+{
+    UseMethod("copy_from_url")
+}
+
+
+#' @rdname file_transfer
+#' @export
+copy_url_to_storage.blob_container <- function(container, src, dest, ...)
+{
+    copy_url_to_blob(container, src, dest, ...)
+}
+
+
+#' @param async For `copy_url_to_blob`, whether the copy operation should be asynchronous (proceed in the background).
+#' @details
+#' `copy_url_to_blob` transfers the contents of the file at the specified HTTP\[S\] URL directly to blob storage, without requiring a temporary local copy to be made. This has a current file size limit of 256MB.
+#' @rdname blob
+#' @export
+copy_url_to_blob <- function(container, src, dest, lease=NULL, async=FALSE)
+{
+    if(!is_url(src))
+        stop("Source must be a HTTP[S] url", call.=FALSE)
+
+    headers <- list(
+        `x-ms-copy-source`=src,
+        `x-ms-requires-sync`=!async
+    )
+    if(!is.null(lease))
+        headers[["x-ms-lease-id"]] <- as.character(lease)
+
+    do_container_op(container, dest, headers=headers, http_verb="PUT")
+}
diff --git a/R/blob_lease.R b/R/blob_lease.R
index b4af0b9..6c10416 100644
--- a/R/blob_lease.R
+++ b/R/blob_lease.R
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ break_lease <- function(container, blob="", period=NULL)
 {
     headers <- list("x-ms-lease-action"="break")
     if(!is_empty(period))
-        headers=c(headers, list("x-ms-lease-break-period"=period))
+        headers <- c(headers, list("x-ms-lease-break-period"=period))
     do_container_op(container, blob, options=list(comp="lease", restype="container"), headers=headers,
                     http_verb="PUT")
 }
diff --git a/R/file_client_funcs.R b/R/file_client_funcs.R
index c33d5eb..ec43141 100644
--- a/R/file_client_funcs.R
+++ b/R/file_client_funcs.R
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 #' Get, list, create, or delete file shares.
 #'
 #' @param endpoint Either a file endpoint object as created by [storage_endpoint], or a character string giving the URL of the endpoint.
-#' @param key,token,sas If an endpoint object is not supplied, authentication credentials: either an access key, an Azure Active Directory (AAD) token, or a SAS, in that order of priority. 
+#' @param key,token,sas If an endpoint object is not supplied, authentication credentials: either an access key, an Azure Active Directory (AAD) token, or a SAS, in that order of priority.
 #' @param api_version If an endpoint object is not supplied, the storage API version to use when interacting with the host. Currently defaults to `"2018-03-28"`.
 #' @param name The name of the file share to get, create, or delete.
 #' @param confirm For deleting a share, whether to ask for confirmation.
@@ -195,7 +195,7 @@ delete_file_share.file_endpoint <- function(endpoint, name, confirm=TRUE, ...)
 #' @param share A file share object.
 #' @param dir,file A string naming a directory or file respectively.
 #' @param info Whether to return names only, or all information in a directory listing.
-#' @param src,dest The source and destination files for uploading and downloading. For uploading, `src` can also be a [textConnection] or [rawConnection] object to allow transferring in-memory R objects without creating a temporary file.
+#' @param src,dest The source and destination files for uploading and downloading. See 'Details' below.
 #' @param confirm Whether to ask for confirmation on deleting a file or directory.
 #' @param blocksize The number of bytes to upload/download per HTTP(S) request.
 #' @param overwrite When downloading, whether to overwrite an existing destination file.
@@ -276,7 +276,7 @@ list_azure_files <- function(share, dir, info=c("all", "name"),
     name <- vapply(lst$Entries, function(ent) ent$Name[[1]], FUN.VALUE=character(1))
     if(info == "name")
         return(name)
- 
+
     type <- if(is_empty(name)) character(0) else names(name)
     size <- vapply(lst$Entries,
                    function(ent) if(is_empty(ent$Properties)) NA_character_
diff --git a/R/pool.R b/R/pool.R
index eb6e7ad..6bd633d 100644
--- a/R/pool.R
+++ b/R/pool.R
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ delete_pool <- function()
 {
     if(!exists("pool", envir=.AzureStor))
         return()
-    
+
     message("Deleting background pool")
     parallel::stopCluster(.AzureStor$pool)
     rm(pool, envir=.AzureStor)
diff --git a/R/transfer_generics.R b/R/transfer_generics.R
index 5d43eca..e225d72 100644
--- a/R/transfer_generics.R
+++ b/R/transfer_generics.R
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 #'
 #' `upload_to_url` and `download_to_url` allow you to transfer a file to or from Azure storage, given the URL of the source or destination. The storage details (endpoint, container name, and so on) are obtained from the URL.
 #'
-#' By default, `storage_download` and `download_from_url` will display a progress bar while they are downloading. To turn this off, use `options(azure_storage_progress_bar=FALSE)`. To turn the progress bar back on, use `options(azure_storage_progress_bar=TRUE)`.
+#' By default, the upload and download functions will display a progress bar while they are downloading. To turn this off, use `options(azure_storage_progress_bar=FALSE)`. To turn the progress bar back on, use `options(azure_storage_progress_bar=TRUE)`.
 #'
 #' @seealso
 #' [storage_container], [blob_container], [file_share], [adls_filesystem]
diff --git a/man/adls.Rd b/man/adls.Rd
index 2d4c636..d8c925a 100644
--- a/man/adls.Rd
+++ b/man/adls.Rd
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ delete_adls_dir(filesystem, dir, recursive = FALSE, confirm = TRUE)
 
 \item{recursive}{For \code{list_adls_files}, and \code{delete_adls_dir}, whether the operation should recurse through subdirectories. For \code{delete_adls_dir}, this must be TRUE to delete a non-empty directory.}
 
-\item{src, dest}{The source and destination files for uploading and downloading. Paths are allowed. For uploading, \code{src} can also be a \link{textConnection} or \link{rawConnection} object to allow transferring in-memory R objects without creating a temporary file.}
+\item{src, dest}{The source and destination paths/files for uploading and downloading. See 'Details' below.}
 
 \item{blocksize}{The number of bytes to upload/download per HTTP(S) request.}
 
diff --git a/man/blob.Rd b/man/blob.Rd
index 26424ef..5af3249 100644
--- a/man/blob.Rd
+++ b/man/blob.Rd
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 % Generated by roxygen2: do not edit by hand
-% Please edit documentation in R/blob_client_funcs.R
+% Please edit documentation in R/blob_client_funcs.R, R/blob_copyurl.R
 \name{list_blobs}
 \alias{list_blobs}
 \alias{upload_blob}
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 \alias{download_blob}
 \alias{multidownload_blob}
 \alias{delete_blob}
+\alias{copy_url_to_blob}
 \title{Operations on a blob container or blob}
 \usage{
 list_blobs(container, info = c("partial", "name", "all"),
@@ -27,6 +28,8 @@ multidownload_blob(container, src, dest, blocksize = 2^24,
   max_concurrent_transfers = 10)
 
 delete_blob(container, blob, confirm = TRUE)
+
+copy_url_to_blob(container, src, dest, lease = NULL, async = FALSE)
 }
 \arguments{
 \item{container}{A blob container object.}
@@ -35,7 +38,7 @@ delete_blob(container, blob, confirm = TRUE)
 
 \item{prefix}{For \code{list_blobs}, filters the result to return only blobs whose name begins with this prefix.}
 
-\item{src, dest}{The source and destination files for uploading and downloading. See 'Details' below.For uploading, \code{src} can also be a \link{textConnection} or \link{rawConnection} object to allow transferring in-memory R objects without creating a temporary file. For downloading,}
+\item{src, dest}{The source and destination files for uploading and downloading. See 'Details' below.}
 
 \item{type}{When uploading, the type of blob to create. Currently only block blobs are supported.}
 
@@ -52,6 +55,8 @@ delete_blob(container, blob, confirm = TRUE)
 \item{blob}{A string naming a blob.}
 
 \item{confirm}{Whether to ask for confirmation on deleting a blob.}
+
+\item{async}{For \code{copy_url_to_blob}, whether the copy operation should be asynchronous (proceed in the background).}
 }
 \value{
 For \code{list_blobs}, details on the blobs in the container. For \code{download_blob}, if \code{dest=NULL}, the contents of the downloaded blob as a raw vector.
@@ -67,6 +72,8 @@ Upload, download, or delete a blob; list blobs in a container.
 The file transfer functions also support working with connections to allow transferring R objects without creating temporary files. For uploading, \code{src} can be a \link{textConnection} or \link{rawConnection} object. For downloading, \code{dest} can be NULL or a \code{rawConnection} object. In the former case, the downloaded data is returned as a raw vector, and for the latter, it will be placed into the connection. See the examples below.
 
 By default, the upload and download functions will display a progress bar to track the file transfer. To turn this off, use \code{options(azure_storage_progress_bar=FALSE)}. To turn the progress bar back on, use \code{options(azure_storage_progress_bar=TRUE)}.
+
+\code{copy_url_to_blob} transfers the contents of the file at the specified HTTP[S] URL directly to blob storage, without requiring a temporary local copy to be made. This has a current file size limit of 256MB.
 }
 \examples{
 \dontrun{
@@ -102,6 +109,11 @@ con <- rawConnection(raw(0), "r+")
 download_blob(cont, "iris.rds", con)
 unserialize(con)
 
+# copy from a public URL: Iris data from UCI machine learning repository
+copy_url_to_blob(cont,
+    "https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/machine-learning-databases/iris/iris.data",
+    "iris.csv")
+
 }
 }
 \seealso{
diff --git a/man/create_storage_account.Rd b/man/create_storage_account.Rd
index 12510d6..5982643 100644
--- a/man/create_storage_account.Rd
+++ b/man/create_storage_account.Rd
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Method for the \link[AzureRMR:az_resource_group]{AzureRMR::az_resource_group} cl
 }
 \section{Usage}{
 \preformatted{create_storage_account(name, location, kind = "StorageV2", replication = "Standard_LRS",
-                       access_tier = "hot"), https_only = TRUE, 
+                       access_tier = "hot"), https_only = TRUE,
                        hierarchical_namespace_enabled = FALSE, properties = list(), ...)
 }
 }
diff --git a/man/file.Rd b/man/file.Rd
index 63dd8b7..e91b19b 100644
--- a/man/file.Rd
+++ b/man/file.Rd
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ delete_azure_dir(share, dir, confirm = TRUE)
 
 \item{prefix}{For \code{list_azure_files}, filters the result to return only files and directories whose name begins with this prefix.}
 
-\item{src, dest}{The source and destination files for uploading and downloading. For uploading, \code{src} can also be a \link{textConnection} or \link{rawConnection} object to allow transferring in-memory R objects without creating a temporary file.}
+\item{src, dest}{The source and destination files for uploading and downloading. See 'Details' below.}
 
 \item{blocksize}{The number of bytes to upload/download per HTTP(S) request.}
 
diff --git a/man/file_transfer.Rd b/man/file_transfer.Rd
index 82aaf28..9531a73 100644
--- a/man/file_transfer.Rd
+++ b/man/file_transfer.Rd
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 % Generated by roxygen2: do not edit by hand
-% Please edit documentation in R/transfer_generics.R
-\name{storage_upload}
+% Please edit documentation in R/blob_copyurl.R, R/transfer_generics.R
+\name{copy_url_to_storage}
+\alias{copy_url_to_storage}
+\alias{copy_url_to_storage.blob_container}
 \alias{storage_upload}
 \alias{storage_upload.blob_container}
 \alias{storage_upload.file_share}
@@ -21,6 +23,10 @@
 \alias{upload_to_url}
 \title{Upload and download generics}
 \usage{
+copy_url_to_storage(container, src, dest, ...)
+
+\method{copy_url_to_storage}{blob_container}(container, src, dest, ...)
+
 storage_upload(container, ...)
 
 \method{storage_upload}{blob_container}(container, src, dest, ...)
@@ -61,10 +67,10 @@ upload_to_url(src, dest, key = NULL, token = NULL, sas = NULL, ...)
 \arguments{
 \item{container}{A storage container object.}
 
-\item{...}{Further arguments to pass to lower-level functions.}
-
 \item{src, dest}{The source and destination files to transfer.}
 
+\item{...}{Further arguments to pass to lower-level functions.}
+
 \item{key, token, sas}{Authentication arguments: an access key, Azure Active Directory (AAD) token or a shared access signature (SAS). If multiple arguments are supplied, a key takes priority over a token, which takes priority over a SAS. For \code{upload_to_url} and \code{download_to_url}, you can also provide a SAS as part of the URL itself.}
 
 \item{overwrite}{For downloading, whether to overwrite any destination files that exist.}
@@ -73,13 +79,15 @@ upload_to_url(src, dest, key = NULL, token = NULL, sas = NULL, ...)
 Upload and download generics
 }
 \details{
+\code{copy_url_to_storage} transfers the contents of the file at the specified HTTP[S] URL directly to storage, without requiring a temporary local copy to be made. Currently this is only implemented for blob storage.
+
 These functions allow you to transfer files to and from a storage account.
 
 \code{storage_upload}, \code{storage_download}, \code{storage_multiupload} and \code{storage_multidownload} take as first argument a storage container, either for blob storage, file storage, or ADLSgen2. They dispatch to the corresponding file transfer functions for the given storage type.
 
 \code{upload_to_url} and \code{download_to_url} allow you to transfer a file to or from Azure storage, given the URL of the source or destination. The storage details (endpoint, container name, and so on) are obtained from the URL.
 
-By default, \code{storage_download} and \code{download_from_url} will display a progress bar while they are downloading. To turn this off, use \code{options(azure_storage_progress_bar=FALSE)}. To turn the progress bar back on, use \code{options(azure_storage_progress_bar=TRUE)}.
+By default, the upload and download functions will display a progress bar while they are downloading. To turn this off, use \code{options(azure_storage_progress_bar=FALSE)}. To turn the progress bar back on, use \code{options(azure_storage_progress_bar=TRUE)}.
 }
 \examples{
 \dontrun{
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test02_blob.R b/tests/testthat/test02_blob.R
index 515114c..1b679d0 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test02_blob.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test02_blob.R
@@ -187,7 +187,7 @@ test_that("Blob client interface works",
 
 test_that("AAD authentication works",
 {
-    url <- stor$get_blob_endpoint()$url 
+    url <- stor$get_blob_endpoint()$url
     token <- AzureRMR::get_azure_token("https://storage.azure.com/", tenant=tenant, app=app, password=password)
     bl <- blob_endpoint(url, token=token)
     cont <- create_blob_container(bl, "newcontainer4")
@@ -322,6 +322,24 @@ test_that("chunked downloading works",
 })
 
 
+test_that("copy from url works",
+{
+    bl <- stor$get_blob_endpoint()
+    cont <- create_blob_container(bl, "urltransfer")
+
+    # copy from GitHub repo
+    src_url <- "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/AzureStor/master/tests/resources/iris.csv"
+    orig_file <- "../resources/iris.csv"
+    new_file <- tempfile()
+
+    copy_url_to_blob(cont, src_url, "iris.csv", async=FALSE)
+    download_blob(cont, "iris.csv", new_file)
+
+    # use readLines to workaround GH auto-translating CRLF -> LF
+    expect_identical(readLines(orig_file), readLines(new_file))
+})
+
+
 teardown(
 {
     bl <- stor$get_blob_endpoint()