Use HeadBucket with an AWS SDK or command line tool

The following code examples show how to use HeadBucket.

Bash

AWS CLI with Bash script

Note

There's more on GitHub. Find the complete example and learn how to set up and run in the AWS Code Examples Repository.

###############################################################################
# function bucket_exists
#
# This function checks to see if the specified bucket already exists.
#
# Parameters:
#       $1 - The name of the bucket to check.
#
# Returns:
#       0 - If the bucket already exists.
#       1 - If the bucket doesn't exist.
###############################################################################
function bucket_exists() {
  local bucket_name
  bucket_name=$1

  # Check whether the bucket already exists.
  # We suppress all output - we're interested only in the return code.

  if aws s3api head-bucket \
    --bucket "$bucket_name" \
    >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    return 0 # 0 in Bash script means true.
  else
    return 1 # 1 in Bash script means false.
  fi
}

• For API details, see HeadBucket in AWS CLI Command Reference.

CLI

AWS CLI

The following command verifies access to a bucket named my-bucket:

aws s3api head-bucket --bucket my-bucket

If the bucket exists and you have access to it, no output is returned. Otherwise, an error message will be shown. For example:

A client error (404) occurred when calling the HeadBucket operation: Not Found

• For API details, see HeadBucket in AWS CLI Command Reference.

Go

SDK for Go V2

Note

There's more on GitHub. Find the complete example and learn how to set up and run in the AWS Code Examples Repository.

// BucketBasics encapsulates the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) actions
// used in the examples.
// It contains S3Client, an Amazon S3 service client that is used to perform bucket
// and object actions.
type BucketBasics struct {
	S3Client *s3.Client
}



// BucketExists checks whether a bucket exists in the current account.
func (basics BucketBasics) BucketExists(bucketName string) (bool, error) {
	_, err := basics.S3Client.HeadBucket(context.TODO(), &s3.HeadBucketInput{
		Bucket: aws.String(bucketName),
	})
	exists := true
	if err != nil {
		var apiError smithy.APIError
		if errors.As(err, &apiError) {
			switch apiError.(type) {
			case *types.NotFound:
				log.Printf("Bucket %v is available.\n", bucketName)
				exists = false
				err = nil
			default:
				log.Printf("Either you don't have access to bucket %v or another error occurred. "+
					"Here's what happened: %v\n", bucketName, err)
			}
		}
	} else {
		log.Printf("Bucket %v exists and you already own it.", bucketName)
	}

	return exists, err
}

• For API details, see HeadBucket in AWS SDK for Go API Reference.

Python

SDK for Python (Boto3)

Note

There's more on GitHub. Find the complete example and learn how to set up and run in the AWS Code Examples Repository.

class BucketWrapper:
    """Encapsulates S3 bucket actions."""

    def __init__(self, bucket):
        """
        :param bucket: A Boto3 Bucket resource. This is a high-level resource in Boto3
                       that wraps bucket actions in a class-like structure.
        """
        self.bucket = bucket
        self.name = bucket.name


    def exists(self):
        """
        Determine whether the bucket exists and you have access to it.

        :return: True when the bucket exists; otherwise, False.
        """
        try:
            self.bucket.meta.client.head_bucket(Bucket=self.bucket.name)
            logger.info("Bucket %s exists.", self.bucket.name)
            exists = True
        except ClientError:
            logger.warning(
                "Bucket %s doesn't exist or you don't have access to it.",
                self.bucket.name,
            )
            exists = False
        return exists

• For API details, see HeadBucket in AWS SDK for Python (Boto3) API Reference.