Objects

Upload

aws s3api put-object \
  --bucket my-bucket \
  --key path/to/file.txt \
  --body file.txt \
  --profile liteio

{ "ETag": "\"d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e\"" }

The ETag is the MD5 of the body, quoted, exactly as the S3 spec wants it.

With metadata

User metadata rides along as x-amz-meta-* headers and comes back on GET and HEAD:

aws s3api put-object \
  --bucket my-bucket \
  --key photo.jpg \
  --body photo.jpg \
  --content-type image/jpeg \
  --metadata '{"author":"alice","project":"website"}' \
  --profile liteio

With tags

aws s3api put-object \
  --bucket my-bucket \
  --key photo.jpg \
  --body photo.jpg \
  --tagging 'env=prod&project=website' \
  --profile liteio

Presigned upload

Hand a time-limited PUT URL to a client that has no credentials:

aws s3 presign s3://my-bucket/upload.bin --expires-in 3600 --profile liteio
# Then, from anywhere:
curl -X PUT --upload-file upload.bin "$PRESIGNED_URL"

Download

aws s3api get-object \
  --bucket my-bucket \
  --key path/to/file.txt \
  output.txt \
  --profile liteio

A byte range

Useful for resuming a transfer or reading a slice of a large file. liteio answers with 206 Partial Content and a Content-Range header:

aws s3api get-object \
  --bucket my-bucket \
  --key large-file.bin \
  --range 'bytes=0-1048575' \
  part0.bin \
  --profile liteio

Conditionally

All four conditional headers work. Fetch only if the object changed:

aws s3api get-object \
  --bucket my-bucket \
  --key file.txt \
  output.txt \
  --if-none-match '"d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e"' \
  --profile liteio

A matching If-None-Match returns 304 Not Modified. If-Match, If-Modified-Since, and If-Unmodified-Since behave the same way they do on AWS.

Stat (HEAD)

Metadata without the body:

aws s3api head-object --bucket my-bucket --key file.txt --profile liteio

{
    "ContentType": "application/octet-stream",
    "ContentLength": 1234,
    "ETag": "\"d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e\"",
    "LastModified": "2026-06-10T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Delete

aws s3api delete-object --bucket my-bucket --key file.txt --profile liteio

With versioning on, this writes a delete marker. Pass --version-id to remove a specific version for good.

Delete in bulk

Up to 1,000 keys in one round trip:

aws s3api delete-objects \
  --bucket my-bucket \
  --delete '{"Objects":[{"Key":"a.txt"},{"Key":"b.txt"},{"Key":"c.txt"}]}' \
  --profile liteio

{
    "Deleted": [
        { "Key": "a.txt" },
        { "Key": "b.txt" },
        { "Key": "c.txt" }
    ]
}

Copy

Server-side, within a bucket or across buckets, with no round trip through the client:

aws s3api copy-object \
  --bucket dest-bucket \
  --key new/path/file.txt \
  --copy-source my-bucket/path/to/file.txt \
  --profile liteio

{
    "CopyObjectResult": {
        "ETag": "\"d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e\"",
        "LastModified": "2026-06-10T12:01:00.000Z"
    }
}

Object tags

aws s3api put-object-tagging \
  --bucket my-bucket \
  --key file.txt \
  --tagging 'TagSet=[{Key=env,Value=prod}]' \
  --profile liteio

aws s3api get-object-tagging    --bucket my-bucket --key file.txt --profile liteio
aws s3api delete-object-tagging --bucket my-bucket --key file.txt --profile liteio