Access AWS S3 via FTP?

Question

Is it possible to access your AWS S3 bucket via ftp?

I am currently using the AWS console to upload files but this is rather laborious as you cannot upload entire directories.

I note that AWS does not offer direct ftp access to S3, but there are some ftp clients who offer this service. Can anyone recommend a solution?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Is it possible to access your AWS S3 bucket via ftp?

No, I don't think this is possible - sorry!

However, there are lots of tools out there for uploading and syncing content to S3 - many of them free and many of them open source.

I tend to use CloudBerry Explorer for my tasks - including the command line interface - but there are lots of alternative products and solutions out there.

Answer 2

New versions of WinSCP support "Amazon S3". Just select "Amazon S3" as "File Protocol". You need "Access key ID" and "Secret Access key".

Answer 3

Cyberduck, Transmit & CrossFTP

There's a lot of S3 compatible clients.

Answer 4

Yes, you can do this using CloudFTP from SMEStorage. I use this to have my website automatically backup to S3 (http://www.smestorage.com/?p=static&page=CloudFTP).

Answer 5

You can use s3 cmd, also you can configure aws cli and use command to upload files to s3. I would recommend to use http://s3browser.com/

Answer 6

See MyCloudSend is now available in AWS Marketplace. For more information and features see here

Answer 7

Sadly no but you can use MPS360 Explorer (https://www.msp360.com/explorer/windows/amazon-s3.aspx) which I use frequently, it has similar functionality as FTP.

Answer 8

Yes, you can. (The answer to the question has changed since it was written, so adding this new info in case someone finds the old question.)

In 2018, Amazon added native SFTP support to access S3 buckets. In 2020 they extended the AWS Transfer service to include FTPS and FTP support. See https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-aws-transfer-for-ftp-and-ftps-in-addition-to-existing-sftp/ for details.

As others have pointed out, there are various options to access S3 buckets more directly, including Filezilla Pro, but if you're using a software client that requires FTP (or FTPS or SFTP), the new AWS Transfer approach will maintain legacy FTP compatibility.