AWS CLI Command Reference

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[ aws . topics ]

AWS CLI S3 Case-Insensitivity

This page explains how to detect and handle potential case conflicts when downloading multiple objects from S3 to a local case-insensitive filesystem using a single AWS CLI command.

Case conflicts

S3 object keys are case-sensitive meaning that a bucket can have a set of key names that differ only by case, for example, a.txt and A.txt.

The AWS CLI offers high-level S3 commands that manage transfers of multiple S3 objects using a single command:

  • aws s3 sync
  • aws s3 cp --recursive
  • aws s3 mv --recursive

Case conflicts can occur on case-insensitive filesystems when an S3 bucket has multiple objects whose keys differ only by case and a single AWS CLI command is called to download multiple S3 objects OR a local file already exists whose name differs only by case.

For example, consider an S3 bucket with the following stored objects:

  • a.txt
  • A.txt

When the following AWS CLI command is called, the AWS CLI will submit requests to download a.txt and A.txt. Since only one can exist on a case-insensitive filesystem, the last download to finish will be the file that’s locally available.

aws s3 sync s3://examplebucket ./mylocaldir

Detecting and handling case conflicts

To detect and handle case conflicts, you can specify the --case-conflict parameter. The following values are valid options:

  • error - When a case conflict is detected, the command will immediately fail and abort in-progress downloads.
  • warn - When a case conflict is detected, the AWS CLI will display a warning.
  • skip - When a case conflict is detected, the command will skip downloading the object and continue and display a warning.
  • ignore - (Default) Case conflicts will not be detected or handled.

Continuing the prior example, the following describes what happens when appending the --case-conflict parameter with possible values:

--case-conflict error

  1. Submit a download request for A.txt.
  2. Detect that a.txt conflicts with an object that’s been submitted for download.
  3. Throw an error. If A.txt finished downloading, it will be locally available. Otherwise, the download request for A.txt will be aborted.

--case-conflict warn

  1. Submit a download request for A.txt.
  2. Detect that a.txt conflicts with an object that’s been submitted for download.
  3. Display a warning.
  4. Submit a download request for a.txt, downloading A.txt and a.txt in parallel.

--case-conflict skip

  1. Submit a download request for A.txt.
  2. Detect that a.txt conflicts with an object that’s been submitted for download.
  3. Skip downloading a.txt and continue.

--case-conflict ignore

  1. Submit a download request for A.txt.
  2. Submit a download request for a.txt, downloading A.txt and a.txt in parallel.

If your local filesystem is case-sensitive, there’s no need to detect and handle case conflicts. We recommend setting --case-conflict ignore in this case.

S3 Express directory buckets

Detecting case conflicts is NOT supported when the source is an S3 Express directory bucket. When operating on directory buckets, valid values for the --case-conflict parameter are:

  • warn
  • ignore

The following values are invalid when operating on directory buckets:

  • error
  • skip

For example, calling the following command will fail:

aws s3 cp s3://mydirbucket--usw2-az1--x-s3 ./mylocaldir --recursive --case-conflict error