diff --git a/packages/components/src/storage/GCSStorageProvider.test.ts b/packages/components/src/storage/GCSStorageProvider.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..9723f25950e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/components/src/storage/GCSStorageProvider.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+import { GCSStorageProvider } from './GCSStorageProvider'
+
+const bucketMock = {}
+const multerMock = jest.fn((config) => config)
+const storageCtorMock = jest.fn(() => ({
+    bucket: jest.fn(() => bucketMock)
+}))
+const multerGoogleCloudStorageMock = jest.fn((config) => config)
+
+jest.mock('@google-cloud/storage', () => ({
+    Storage: storageCtorMock
+}))
+
+jest.mock('multer', () => multerMock)
+
+jest.mock('multer-cloud-storage', () => multerGoogleCloudStorageMock)
+
+jest.mock('@google-cloud/logging-winston', () => ({
+    LoggingWinston: jest.fn()
+}))
+
+describe('GCSStorageProvider', () => {
+    const originalEnv = process.env
+
+    beforeEach(() => {
+        jest.clearAllMocks()
+        process.env = {
+            ...originalEnv,
+            GOOGLE_CLOUD_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME: 'test-bucket',
+            GOOGLE_CLOUD_STORAGE_PROJ_ID: 'test-project',
+            GOOGLE_CLOUD_STORAGE_CREDENTIAL: '/tmp/gcs.json'
+        }
+    })
+
+    afterAll(() => {
+        process.env = originalEnv
+    })
+
+    it('treats whitespace-padded false as disabled uniform bucket access', () => {
+        process.env.GOOGLE_CLOUD_UNIFORM_BUCKET_ACCESS = ' false '
+
+        const provider = new GCSStorageProvider()
+
+        provider.getMulterStorage()
+
+        expect(multerGoogleCloudStorageMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
+            expect.objectContaining({
+                uniformBucketLevelAccess: false
+            })
+        )
+    })
+
+    it('keeps uniform bucket access enabled when env is unset', () => {
+        delete process.env.GOOGLE_CLOUD_UNIFORM_BUCKET_ACCESS
+
+        const provider = new GCSStorageProvider()
+
+        provider.getMulterStorage()
+
+        expect(multerGoogleCloudStorageMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
+            expect.objectContaining({
+                uniformBucketLevelAccess: true
+            })
+        )
+    })
+})
diff --git a/packages/components/src/storage/GCSStorageProvider.ts b/packages/components/src/storage/GCSStorageProvider.ts
index 22be092db99..3fb46152aae 100644
--- a/packages/components/src/storage/GCSStorageProvider.ts
+++ b/packages/components/src/storage/GCSStorageProvider.ts
@@ -7,6 +7,12 @@ import { FileInfo, StorageResult, StorageSizeResult } from './IStorageProvider'
 
 import MulterGoogleCloudStorage from 'multer-cloud-storage'
 
+const isUniformBucketLevelAccessEnabled = () => {
+    const value = process.env.GOOGLE_CLOUD_UNIFORM_BUCKET_ACCESS
+    if (typeof value === 'undefined') return true
+    return value.trim().toLowerCase() !== 'false'
+}
+
 export class GCSStorageProvider extends BaseStorageProvider {
     private bucket: Bucket
     private bucketName: string
@@ -330,7 +336,7 @@ export class GCSStorageProvider extends BaseStorageProvider {
                 projectId: this.projectId,
                 bucket: this.bucketName,
                 keyFilename: this.keyFilename,
-                uniformBucketLevelAccess: Boolean(process.env.GOOGLE_CLOUD_UNIFORM_BUCKET_ACCESS) ?? true,
+                uniformBucketLevelAccess: isUniformBucketLevelAccessEnabled(),
                 destination: `uploads/${uuidv4()}`
             })
         })