How do I use aws s3 cp to download an entire folder from an S3 bucket

Question

I want to download an entire folder from my S3 bucket to my computer using the AWS CLI. How can I use the aws s3 cp command to do this? I just want to make sure that all the files in the folder are downloaded at once, not just one by one.

Answer 1

• Use the aws s3 cp command to copy files from or to an S3 bucket. Think of it like moving files between two different storage locations—S3 (cloud) and your computer.

• command --> aws s3 cp s3://bucket-name/folder-path/ local-folder-path --recursive

• This tells AWS to copy everything from the cloud folder to a local folder on your computer. 

 Let’s understand in detail: 

• aws s3 cp: This means we are using the AWS CLI to copy files.

• s3://bucket-name/folder-path/: This is the folder in S3 (your cloud storage) that you want to download.

• local-folder-path: This is where you want to save the files on your computer.

• --recursive: This ensures that all files and subfolders in the cloud folder are downloaded.

Example:

• aws s3 cp s3://my-bucket-name/my-folder/ ./local-folder/ --recursive

• This will download all the files from the folder named "my-folder" in S3 to a folder on your computer named "local-folder."

• The recursive part is important because it makes sure you get everything inside the folder, not just the top-level files!