diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/fix-plugin-imports.yml b/changelogs/fragments/fix-plugin-imports.yml
index 93afa59bb0..aa3cbecfd5 100644
--- a/changelogs/fragments/fix-plugin-imports.yml
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/fix-plugin-imports.yml
@@ -2,3 +2,4 @@ bugfixes:
 - "linode inventory plugin - make sure that plugin errors out on initialization if the required library is not found, and not on load-time (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/pull/1297)."
 - "redis cache plugin - make sure that plugin errors out on initialization if the required library is not found, and not on load-time (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/pull/1297)."
 - "memcached cache plugin - make sure that plugin errors out on initialization if the required library is not found, and not on load-time (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/pull/1297)."
+- "gcp_storage_files lookup plugin - make sure that plugin errors out on initialization if the required library is not found, and not on load-time (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/pull/1297)."
diff --git a/plugins/lookup/gcp_storage_file.py b/plugins/lookup/gcp_storage_file.py
index 09181ffc9d..206788c311 100644
--- a/plugins/lookup/gcp_storage_file.py
+++ b/plugins/lookup/gcp_storage_file.py
@@ -48,11 +48,16 @@ import base64
 import json
 import mimetypes
 import os
-import requests
 from ansible.errors import AnsibleError
 from ansible.plugins.lookup import LookupBase
 from ansible.utils.display import Display
 
+try:
+    import requests
+    HAS_REQUESTS = True
+except ImportError:
+    HAS_REQUESTS = False
+
 try:
     from ansible_collections.google.cloud.plugins.module_utils.gcp_utils import navigate_hash, GcpSession
     HAS_GOOGLE_CLOUD_COLLECTION = True
@@ -146,4 +151,6 @@ class LookupModule(LookupBase):
     def run(self, terms, variables=None, **kwargs):
         if not HAS_GOOGLE_CLOUD_COLLECTION:
             raise AnsibleError("community.general.gcp_storage_file needs a supported version of the google.cloud collection installed")
+        if not HAS_REQUESTS:
+            raise AnsibleError("community.general.gcp_storage_file needs requests installed. Use `pip install requests` to install it")
         return GcpFileLookup().run(terms, variables=variables, **kwargs)