---
title: "Amazon S3"
description: "Rclone docs for Amazon S3"
date: "2014-04-26"
---

Paths are specified as `remote:bucket` or `remote:`

S3 paths can't refer to subdirectories within a bucket (yet).

So to copy a local directory to a s3 container called backup

    rclone sync /home/source s3:backup

Here is an example of making an s3 configuration.  First run

    rclone config

This will guide you through an interactive setup process.

```
No remotes found - make a new one
n) New remote
q) Quit config
n/q> n
name> remote
What type of source is it?
Choose a number from below
 1) swift
 2) s3
 3) local
 4) drive
type> 2
AWS Access Key ID.
access_key_id> accesskey
AWS Secret Access Key (password). 
secret_access_key> secretaccesskey
Endpoint for S3 API.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
 * The default endpoint - a good choice if you are unsure.
 * US Region, Northern Virginia or Pacific Northwest.
 * Leave location constraint empty.
 1) https://s3.amazonaws.com/
 * US Region, Northern Virginia only.
 * Leave location constraint empty.
 2) https://s3-external-1.amazonaws.com
[snip]
 * South America (Sao Paulo) Region
 * Needs location constraint sa-east-1.
 9) https://s3-sa-east-1.amazonaws.com
endpoint> 1
Location constraint - must be set to match the Endpoint.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
 * Empty for US Region, Northern Virginia or Pacific Northwest.
 1) 
 * US West (Oregon) Region.
 2) us-west-2
[snip]
 * South America (Sao Paulo) Region.
 9) sa-east-1
location_constraint> 1
--------------------
[remote]
access_key_id = accesskey
secret_access_key = secretaccesskey
endpoint = https://s3.amazonaws.com/
location_constraint = 
--------------------
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> y
Current remotes:

Name                 Type
====                 ====
remote               s3

e) Edit existing remote
n) New remote
d) Delete remote
q) Quit config
e/n/d/q> q
```

This remote is called `remote` and can now be used like this

See all buckets

    rclone lsd remote:

Make a new bucket

    rclone mkdir remote:bucket

List the contents of a bucket

    rclone ls remote:bucket

Sync `/home/local/directory` to the remote bucket, deleting any excess
files in the bucket.

    rclone sync /home/local/directory remote:bucket

Modified time
-------------

The modified time is stored as metadata on the object as
`X-Amz-Meta-Mtime` as floating point since the epoch accurate to 1 ns.