Retrieving object versions from a versioning-enabled bucket - Amazon Simple Storage Service

Retrieving object versions from a versioning-enabled bucket

Versioning in Amazon S3 is a way of keeping multiple variants of an object in the same bucket. A simple GET request retrieves the current version of an object. The following figure shows how GET returns the current version of the object, photo.gif.

Illustration that shows how GET returns the current version of the object.

To retrieve a specific version, you have to specify its version ID. The following figure shows that a GET versionId request retrieves the specified version of the object (not necessarily the current one).

Illustration that shows how a GET versionId request retrieves the specified version of the object.

You can retrieve object versions in Amazon S3 using the console, AWS SDKs, or REST API.

Note

To access object versions older than 300 versions, you must use the AWS CLI or the object's URL.

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon S3 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/s3/.

  2. In the Buckets list, choose the name of the bucket that contains the object.

  3. In the Objects list, choose the name of the object.

  4. Choose Versions.

    Amazon S3 shows all the versions for the object.

  5. Select the check box next to the Version ID for the versions that you want to retrieve.

  6. Choose Actions, choose Download, and save the object.

You also can view, download, and delete object versions in the object overview panel. For more information, see Viewing object properties in the Amazon S3 console.

Important

You can undelete an object only if it was deleted as the latest (current) version. You can't undelete a previous version of an object that was deleted. For more information, see Retaining multiple versions of objects with S3 Versioning.

The examples for uploading objects in nonversioned and versioning-enabled buckets are the same. However, for versioning-enabled buckets, Amazon S3 assigns a version number. Otherwise, the version number is null.

For examples of downloading objects using AWS SDKs for Java, .NET, and PHP, see Downloading objects.

For examples of listing the version of objects using AWS SDKs for .NET and Rust, see List the version of objects in an Amazon S3 bucket.

To retrieve a specific object version

  1. Set versionId to the ID of the version of the object that you want to retrieve.

  2. Send a GET Object versionId request.

Example — Retrieving a versioned object

The following request retrieves version L4kqtJlcpXroDTDmpUMLUo of my-image.jpg.

GET /my-image.jpg?versionId=L4kqtJlcpXroDTDmpUMLUo HTTP/1.1
Host: bucket.s3.amazonaws.com
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:32:00 GMT
Authorization: AWS AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE:0RQf4/cRonhpaBX5sCYVf1bNRuU=

You can retrieve just the metadata of an object (not the content). For information, see Retrieving the metadata of an object version.

For information about restoring a previous object version, see Restoring previous versions.