Upload an object Prevent uploading objects with identical key names

Uploading objects

When you upload a file to Amazon S3, it is stored as an S3 object. Objects consist of the file data and metadata that describes the object. You can have an unlimited number of objects in a bucket. Before you can upload files to an Amazon S3 bucket, you need write permissions for the bucket. For more information about access permissions, see Identity and Access Management for Amazon S3.

You can upload any file type—images, backups, data, movies, and so on—into an S3 bucket. The maximum size of a file that you can upload by using the Amazon S3 console is 160 GB. To upload a file larger than 160 GB, use the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), AWS SDKs, or Amazon S3 REST API.

If you upload an object with a key name that already exists in a versioning-enabled bucket, Amazon S3 creates another version of the object instead of replacing the existing object. For more information about enabling versioning, see Enabling versioning on buckets.

Depending on the size of the data that you're uploading, Amazon S3 offers the following options:

Upload an object in a single operation by using the AWS SDKs, REST API, or AWS CLI – With a single PUT operation, you can upload a single object up to 5 GB in size.
Upload a single object by using the Amazon S3 console – With the Amazon S3 console, you can upload a single object up to 160 GB in size.
Upload an object in parts by using the AWS SDKs, REST API, or AWS CLI – Using the multipart upload API operation, you can upload a single large object, up to 5 TB in size.

The multipart upload API operation is designed to improve the upload experience for larger objects. You can upload an object in parts. These object parts can be uploaded independently, in any order, and in parallel. You can use a multipart upload for objects from 5 MB to 5 TB in size. For more information, see Uploading and copying objects using multipart upload in Amazon S3.

When you upload an object, the object is automatically encrypted using server-side encryption with Amazon S3 managed keys (SSE-S3) by default. When you download it, the object is decrypted. For more information, see Setting default server-side encryption behavior for Amazon S3 buckets and Protecting data with encryption.

When you're uploading an object, if you want to use a different type of default encryption, you can also specify server-side encryption with AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) keys (SSE-KMS) in your S3 PUT requests or set the default encryption configuration in the destination bucket to use SSE-KMS to encrypt your data. For more information about SSE-KMS, see Specifying server-side encryption with AWS KMS (SSE-KMS). If you want to use a KMS key that is owned by a different account, you must have permission to use the key. For more information about cross-account permissions for KMS keys, see Creating KMS keys that other accounts can use in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

If you encounter an Access Denied (403 Forbidden) error in Amazon S3, see Troubleshoot access denied (403 Forbidden) errors in Amazon S3 to learn more about its common causes.

Upload an object

This procedure explains how to upload objects and folders to an Amazon S3 bucket by using the console.

When you upload an object, the object key name is the file name and any optional prefixes. In the Amazon S3 console, you can create folders to organize your objects. In Amazon S3, folders are represented as prefixes that appear in the object key name. If you upload an individual object to a folder in the Amazon S3 console, the folder name is included in the object key name.

For example, if you upload an object named sample1.jpg to a folder named backup, the key name is backup/sample1.jpg. However, the object is displayed in the console as sample1.jpg in the backup folder. For more information about key names, see Working with object metadata.

Note

If you rename an object or change any of the properties in the Amazon S3 console, for example Storage Class, Encryption, or Metadata, a new object is created to replace the old one. If S3 Versioning is enabled, a new version of the object is created, and the existing object becomes an older version. The role that changes the property also becomes the owner of the new object (or object version).

When you upload a folder, Amazon S3 uploads all of the files and subfolders from the specified folder to your bucket. It then assigns an object key name that is a combination of the uploaded file name and the folder name. For example, if you upload a folder named /images that contains two files, sample1.jpg and sample2.jpg, Amazon S3 uploads the files and then assigns the corresponding key names, images/sample1.jpg and images/sample2.jpg. The key names include the folder name as a prefix. The Amazon S3 console displays only the part of the key name that follows the last /. For example, within an images folder, the images/sample1.jpg and images/sample2.jpg objects are displayed as sample1.jpg and a sample2.jpg.

To upload folders and files to an S3 bucket

Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon S3 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/s3/.
In the left navigation pane, choose Buckets.
In the Buckets list, choose the name of the bucket that you want to upload your folders or files to.
Choose Upload.
In the Upload window, do one of the following:
- Drag and drop files and folders to the Upload window.
- Choose Add file or Add folder, choose the files or folders to upload, and choose Open.
To enable versioning, under Destination, choose Enable Bucket Versioning.
To upload the listed files and folders without configuring additional upload options, at the bottom of the page, choose Upload.

Amazon S3 uploads your objects and folders. When the upload is finished, you see a success message on the Upload: status page.

To configure additional object properties

To change access control list permissions, choose Permissions.
Under Access control list (ACL), edit the permissions.

For information about object access permissions, see Using the S3 console to set ACL permissions for an object. You can grant read access to your objects to the public (everyone in the world) for all of the files that you're uploading. However, we recommend not changing the default setting for public read access. Granting public read access is applicable to a small subset of use cases, such as when buckets are used for websites. You can always change the object permissions after you upload the object.
To configure other additional properties, choose Properties.
Under Storage class, choose the storage class for the files that you're uploading.

For more information about storage classes, see Understanding and managing Amazon S3 storage classes.
To update the encryption settings for your objects, under Server-side encryption settings, do the following.
1. Choose Specify an encryption key.
2. Under Encryption settings, choose Use bucket settings for default encryption or Override bucket settings for default encryption.
3. If you chose Override bucket settings for default encryption, you must configure the following encryption settings.
  - To encrypt the uploaded files by using keys that are managed by Amazon S3, choose Amazon S3 managed key (SSE-S3).
    
    For more information, see Using server-side encryption with Amazon S3 managed keys (SSE-S3).
  - To encrypt the uploaded files by using keys stored in AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS), choose AWS Key Management Service key (SSE-KMS). Then choose one of the following options for AWS KMS key:
    To choose from a list of available KMS keys, choose Choose from your AWS KMS keys, and then choose your KMS key from the list of available keys.
    
    Both the AWS managed key (aws/s3) and your customer managed keys appear in this list. For more information about customer managed keys, see Customer keys and AWS keys in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.
    
    To enter the KMS key ARN, choose Enter AWS KMS key ARN, and then enter your KMS key ARN in the field that appears.
    
    To create a new customer managed key in the AWS KMS console, choose Create a KMS key.
    
    For more information about creating an AWS KMS key, see Creating keys in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.
    Important
    You can use only KMS keys that are available in the same AWS Region as the bucket. The Amazon S3 console lists only the first 100 KMS keys in the same Region as the bucket. To use a KMS key that is not listed, you must enter your KMS key ARN. If you want to use a KMS key that is owned by a different account, you must first have permission to use the key and then you must enter the KMS key ARN.
    Amazon S3 supports only symmetric encryption KMS keys, and not asymmetric KMS keys. For more information, see Identifying symmetric and asymmetric KMS keys in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.
To use additional checksums, choose On. Then for Checksum function, choose the function that you would like to use. Amazon S3 calculates and stores the checksum value after it receives the entire object. You can use the Precalculated value box to supply a precalculated value. If you do, Amazon S3 compares the value that you provided to the value that it calculates. If the two values do not match, Amazon S3 generates an error.

Additional checksums enable you to specify the checksum algorithm that you would like to use to verify your data. For more information about additional checksums, see Checking object integrity in Amazon S3.
To add tags to all of the objects that you are uploading, choose Add tag. Enter a tag name in the Key field. Enter a value for the tag.

Object tagging gives you a way to categorize storage. Each tag is a key-value pair. Key and tag values are case sensitive. You can have up to 10 tags per object. A tag key can be up to 128 Unicode characters in length, and tag values can be up to 255 Unicode characters in length. For more information about object tags, see Categorizing your storage using tags.
To add metadata, choose Add metadata.
1. Under Type, choose System defined or User defined.
  
  For system-defined metadata, you can select common HTTP headers, such as Content-Type and Content-Disposition. For a list of system-defined metadata and information about whether you can add the value, see System-defined object metadata. Any metadata starting with the prefix x-amz-meta- is treated as user-defined metadata. User-defined metadata is stored with the object and is returned when you download the object. Both the keys and their values must conform to US-ASCII standards. User-defined metadata can be as large as 2 KB. For more information about system-defined and user-defined metadata, see Working with object metadata.
2. For Key, choose a key.
3. Type a value for the key.
To upload your objects, choose Upload.

Amazon S3 uploads your object. When the upload completes, you can see a success message on the Upload: status page.
Choose Exit.

You can send a PUT request to upload an object of up to 5 GB in a single operation. For more information, see the PutObject example in the AWS CLI Command Reference.

You can send REST requests to upload an object. You can send a PUT request to upload data in a single operation. For more information, see PUT Object.

You can use the AWS SDKs to upload objects in Amazon S3. The SDKs provide wrapper libraries for you to upload data easily. For information, see the List of supported SDKs.

Here are some examples with a few select SDKs:

.NET

The following C# code example creates two objects with two PutObjectRequest requests:

The first PutObjectRequest request saves a text string as sample object data. It also specifies the bucket and object key names.
The second PutObjectRequest request uploads a file by specifying the file name. This request also specifies the ContentType header and optional object metadata (a title).

For information about setting up and running the code examples, see Getting Started with the AWS SDK for .NET in the AWS SDK for .NET Developer Guide.


using Amazon;
using Amazon.S3;
using Amazon.S3.Model;
using System;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace Amazon.DocSamples.S3
{
    class UploadObjectTest
    {
        private const string bucketName = "*** bucket name ***";
        // For simplicity the example creates two objects from the same file.
        // You specify key names for these objects.
        private const string keyName1 = "*** key name for first object created ***";
        private const string keyName2 = "*** key name for second object created ***";
        private const string filePath = @"*** file path ***";
        private static readonly RegionEndpoint bucketRegion = RegionEndpoint.EUWest1; 

        private static IAmazonS3 client;

        public static void Main()
        {
            client = new AmazonS3Client(bucketRegion);
            WritingAnObjectAsync().Wait();
        }

        static async Task WritingAnObjectAsync()
        {
            try
            {
                // 1. Put object-specify only key name for the new object.
                var putRequest1 = new PutObjectRequest
                {
                    BucketName = bucketName,
                    Key = keyName1,
                    ContentBody = "sample text"
                };

                PutObjectResponse response1 = await client.PutObjectAsync(putRequest1);

                // 2. Put the object-set ContentType and add metadata.
                var putRequest2 = new PutObjectRequest
                {
                    BucketName = bucketName,
                    Key = keyName2,
                    FilePath = filePath,
                    ContentType = "text/plain"
                };
                
                putRequest2.Metadata.Add("x-amz-meta-title", "someTitle");
                PutObjectResponse response2 = await client.PutObjectAsync(putRequest2);
            }
            catch (AmazonS3Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(
                        "Error encountered ***. Message:'{0}' when writing an object"
                        , e.Message);
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(
                    "Unknown encountered on server. Message:'{0}' when writing an object"
                    , e.Message);
            }
        }
    }
}

Java

The following example creates two objects. The first object has a text string as data, and the second object is a file. The example creates the first object by specifying the bucket name, object key, and text data directly in a call to AmazonS3Client.putObject(). The example creates the second object by using a PutObjectRequest that specifies the bucket name, object key, and file path. The PutObjectRequest also specifies the ContentType header and title metadata.

For instructions on creating and testing a working sample, see Getting Started in the AWS SDK for Java Developer Guide.



import com.amazonaws.AmazonServiceException;
import com.amazonaws.SdkClientException;
import com.amazonaws.regions.Regions;
import com.amazonaws.services.s3.AmazonS3;
import com.amazonaws.services.s3.AmazonS3ClientBuilder;
import com.amazonaws.services.s3.model.ObjectMetadata;
import com.amazonaws.services.s3.model.PutObjectRequest;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

public class UploadObject {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        Regions clientRegion = Regions.DEFAULT_REGION;
        String bucketName = "*** Bucket name ***";
        String stringObjKeyName = "*** String object key name ***";
        String fileObjKeyName = "*** File object key name ***";
        String fileName = "*** Path to file to upload ***";

        try {
            // This code expects that you have AWS credentials set up per:
            // https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-java/v1/developer-guide/setup-credentials.html
            AmazonS3 s3Client = AmazonS3ClientBuilder.standard()
                    .withRegion(clientRegion)
                    .build();

            // Upload a text string as a new object.
            s3Client.putObject(bucketName, stringObjKeyName, "Uploaded String Object");

            // Upload a file as a new object with ContentType and title specified.
            PutObjectRequest request = new PutObjectRequest(bucketName, fileObjKeyName, new File(fileName));
            ObjectMetadata metadata = new ObjectMetadata();
            metadata.setContentType("plain/text");
            metadata.addUserMetadata("title", "someTitle");
            request.setMetadata(metadata);
            s3Client.putObject(request);
        } catch (AmazonServiceException e) {
            // The call was transmitted successfully, but Amazon S3 couldn't process
            // it, so it returned an error response.
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (SdkClientException e) {
            // Amazon S3 couldn't be contacted for a response, or the client
            // couldn't parse the response from Amazon S3.
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

JavaScript

The following example uploads an existing file to an Amazon S3 bucket in a specific Region.


import { readFile } from "node:fs/promises";

import {
  PutObjectCommand,
  S3Client,
  S3ServiceException,
} from "@aws-sdk/client-s3";

/**
 * Upload a file to an S3 bucket.
 * @param {{ bucketName: string, key: string, filePath: string }}
 */
export const main = async ({ bucketName, key, filePath }) => {
  const client = new S3Client({});
  const command = new PutObjectCommand({
    Bucket: bucketName,
    Key: key,
    Body: await readFile(filePath),
  });

  try {
    const response = await client.send(command);
    console.log(response);
  } catch (caught) {
    if (
      caught instanceof S3ServiceException &&
      caught.name === "EntityTooLarge"
    ) {
      console.error(
        `Error from S3 while uploading object to ${bucketName}. \
The object was too large. To upload objects larger than 5GB, use the S3 console (160GB max) \
or the multipart upload API (5TB max).`,
      );
    } else if (caught instanceof S3ServiceException) {
      console.error(
        `Error from S3 while uploading object to ${bucketName}.  ${caught.name}: ${caught.message}`,
      );
    } else {
      throw caught;
    }
  }
};

PHP

This example guides you through using classes from the AWS SDK for PHP to upload an object of up to 5 GB in size. For larger files, you must use the multipart upload API operation. For more information, see Uploading and copying objects using multipart upload in Amazon S3.

For more information about the AWS SDK for Ruby API, go to AWS SDK for Ruby - Version 2.

Example — Creating an object in an Amazon S3 bucket by uploading data

The following PHP example creates an object in a specified bucket by uploading data using the putObject() method.


 require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use Aws\S3\Exception\S3Exception;
use Aws\S3\S3Client;

$bucket = '*** Your Bucket Name ***';
$keyname = '*** Your Object Key ***';

$s3 = new S3Client([
    'version' => 'latest',
    'region'  => 'us-east-1'
]);

try {
    // Upload data.
    $result = $s3->putObject([
        'Bucket' => $bucket,
        'Key'    => $keyname,
        'Body'   => 'Hello, world!',
        'ACL'    => 'public-read'
    ]);

    // Print the URL to the object.
    echo $result['ObjectURL'] . PHP_EOL;
} catch (S3Exception $e) {
    echo $e->getMessage() . PHP_EOL;
}

Ruby

The AWS SDK for Ruby - Version 3 has two ways of uploading an object to Amazon S3. The first uses a managed file uploader, which makes it easier to upload files of any size from disk. To use the managed file uploader method:

Create an instance of the Aws::S3::Resource class.
Reference the target object by bucket name and key. Objects live in a bucket and have unique keys that identify each object.
Call#upload_file on the object.


require 'aws-sdk-s3'

# Wraps Amazon S3 object actions.
class ObjectUploadFileWrapper
  attr_reader :object

  # @param object [Aws::S3::Object] An existing Amazon S3 object.
  def initialize(object)
    @object = object
  end

  # Uploads a file to an Amazon S3 object by using a managed uploader.
  #
  # @param file_path [String] The path to the file to upload.
  # @return [Boolean] True when the file is uploaded; otherwise false.
  def upload_file(file_path)
    @object.upload_file(file_path)
    true
  rescue Aws::Errors::ServiceError => e
    puts "Couldn't upload file #{file_path} to #{@object.key}. Here's why: #{e.message}"
    false
  end
end

# Example usage:
def run_demo
  bucket_name = "amzn-s3-demo-bucket"
  object_key = "my-uploaded-file"
  file_path = "object_upload_file.rb"

  wrapper = ObjectUploadFileWrapper.new(Aws::S3::Object.new(bucket_name, object_key))
  return unless wrapper.upload_file(file_path)

  puts "File #{file_path} successfully uploaded to #{bucket_name}:#{object_key}."
end

run_demo if $PROGRAM_NAME == __FILE__

The second way that the AWS SDK for Ruby - Version 3 can upload an object uses the #put method of Aws::S3::Object. This is useful if the object is a string or an I/O object that is not a file on disk. To use this method:

Create an instance of the Aws::S3::Resource class.
Reference the target object by bucket name and key.
Call#put, passing in the string or I/O object.


require 'aws-sdk-s3'

# Wraps Amazon S3 object actions.
class ObjectPutWrapper
  attr_reader :object

  # @param object [Aws::S3::Object] An existing Amazon S3 object.
  def initialize(object)
    @object = object
  end

  def put_object(source_file_path)
    File.open(source_file_path, 'rb') do |file|
      @object.put(body: file)
    end
    true
  rescue Aws::Errors::ServiceError => e
    puts "Couldn't put #{source_file_path} to #{object.key}. Here's why: #{e.message}"
    false
  end
end

# Example usage:
def run_demo
  bucket_name = "amzn-s3-demo-bucket"
  object_key = "my-object-key"
  file_path = "my-local-file.txt"

  wrapper = ObjectPutWrapper.new(Aws::S3::Object.new(bucket_name, object_key))
  success = wrapper.put_object(file_path)
  return unless success

  puts "Put file #{file_path} into #{object_key} in #{bucket_name}."
end

run_demo if $PROGRAM_NAME == __FILE__

Prevent uploading objects with identical key names

You can check for the existence of an object in your bucket before creating it using a conditional write on upload operations. This can prevent overwrites of existing data. Conditional writes will validate there is no existing object with the same key name already in your bucket while uploading.

You can use conditional writes for PutObject or CompleteMultipartUpload requests.

For more information about conditional requests see, Add preconditions to S3 operations with conditional requests.

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Document Conventions

Visualizing metadata table data with QuickSight

Using multipart upload