How to Rename Files and Folders in Amazon S3

Renaming files and folders in Amazon S3 might not be as intuitive as you’d expect, due to the nature of how S3 stores objects. In Amazon S3, objects are stored in buckets and organized in a flat structure. This makes operations like renaming more like copying the object to a new name, followed by deleting the original.

The AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) provides a streamlined way to “rename” files and folders by moving them from one location to another. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can achieve this using the AWS CLI.

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the AWS CLI installed. You can install it by following the AWS CLI Installation Guide. Once installed, configure it with your credentials and region using aws configure.

Command for Renaming

The idea is to use the mv (move) command to effectively rename files or folders. The command structure is as follows:

aws s3 mv s3://<bucketname>/<source_path> s3://<bucketname>/<destination_path> --recursive

• <bucketname>: Your S3 bucket’s name.
• <source_path>: The current path of the file or folder.
• <destination_path>: The new path with the desired name.

Example

Let’s say you want to rename a folder data/old_name/ to data/new_name/. Here’s the command:

aws s3 mv s3://your-bucket-name/data/old_name/ s3://your-bucket-name/data/new_name/ --recursive

Important Considerations

• Recursive Renaming: The --recursive flag ensures that all files and folders within the specified path are moved. This is essential when renaming folders to ensure the entire directory is moved.

• Permissions: Make sure you have the necessary permissions to perform s3:ListBucket, s3:GetObject, s3:PutObject, and s3:DeleteObject on the specified paths.

• Data Consistency: Be aware that this operation involves copying data, which may incur additional costs and time depending on the size of the data being moved.

It’s worth noting that S3 doesn’t have physical folders or direct rename capabilities because objects in S3 exist as a flat structure. Everything after the bucket name is part of the object’s key and is organized logically by prefixes.

You can also use the AWS Management Console to manually achieve similar results by downloading the object to your local machine, renaming it, and uploading it back to the desired location. However, this approach is less efficient compared to using the CLI, especially for large-scale operations.

For more details and options, refer to the AWS CLI Command Reference for S3.