Amazon Simple Storage Service i.e. AWS S3 is the best cloud-storage solution for web users who can store a variety of data easily. The service lets users create different buckets for storing objects and all the other types of data with easy management. The AWS S3 File Explore lets AWS Clients interact with S3 Buckets through a user-friendly interface. 

AWS S3: The Concept

Amazon’s S3 uses buckets to store different types of data. The service looks similar to the native file storing devices or hard drives that you use on your computer system. The AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio is the software designed to manage multiple services of the Amazon Web Services platform. Fortunately, you can easily work with AWS S3 Buckets with File Explorer on the Visual Studio. 

To understand the concept of managing the AWS S3 Buckets through File Explorer, you should know about creating buckets first. 

Creating S3 Buckets

To create a new bucket, go to the main page of AWS Explorer and right-click on Content Menu. From here, you need to choose the Create Bucket option. 

In the dialogue box of S3 Bucket, you need to create the bucket manually here by entering the name for the bucket along with other required details. You need to keep a unique name for the bucket that you are going to create. You won’t be allowed to keep the same name for the new bucket that you are creating. 

At last, click the Ok button to create a new bucket within File Explorer through AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio. 

Managing the S3 Buckets for storage objects is super easy with the built-in AWS Explorer. The AWS Explorer is the most crucial tool for AWS clients to manage and use S3 Buckets and other types of data storage tools over the cloud. Let’s see how can we manage the AWS S3 Buckets with AWS Explorer. 

How to Manage S3 Buckets on AWS Explorer?

Open the Context Menu by right-clicking on the option. This will open up the main menu for managing and customizing the S3 Buckets. If we talk about the options, you will see various functions such as Browse, Properties, Policy, Pre-signed URL, Multi-part Uploads, Delete. All of these functions can be used with the existing AWS S3 Buckets. These functions work with the data stored as objects in the S3 Buckets. 

Apart from these common functions, you can also use the same File Explorer for uploading files and folders to Amazon S3. The same tool can be used to transfer files or the entire folders from your local drive to the selected S3 Bucket. While transferring files or folders, make sure to keep the names of your files and folders unique. If you keep the same names for the files and folders, then the File Explorer tool will overwrite the existing files resulting in losing your important data. 

The simple user-interface of AWS File Explorer can be seen here. You can see different tabs for managing the files here. Upload File, Upload Folder, Create Folder, Refresh- all these tabs can be used to upload files from local drives to your main Bucket. To manage the uploading of files and folder, you can customize the way how you want to do so. The Upload Settings menu will help you to customize and manage the files and folders that you want to work with. 

From the main Context Menu, you need to select the Upload Settings option. This option allows you to set metadata and other permissions while uploading new files to the buckets. For better management and easy handling of the data, keep the files and folders uploading option set to Everyone. 

This is an important function you need to customize while using the AWS File Explorer tool as it helps you to reduce the overall data consumption. When you finish uploading the file, you could see it on the main page of the Explorer. 

Now, if you want to clear or delete a particular file from the S3 Bucket, you need to go to the main menu of the page where you could see all the available files stored in the Buckets. Just select the file and click the Clear button to remove the selected files from that particular folder in S3 Bucket. 

The basic functions such as creating a folder, uploading files, opening up a document, downloading the existing file, make files public, changing of storage class, change encryption, rename files, and exploring the properties of each class- all these functions are easily available for the users to manage files and folders with AWS S3 Buckets. 

Conclusion:

This is how you can get started with Amazon S3 File Explorer. The File Explorer tool is included with the Toolkit that needs to be installed by every AWS Client. One can easily start using this File Explorer as it doesn’t ask for any type of special skills or tools. 

The above article explains the basic concepts of working with the AWS S3 File Explorer.  Follow the same steps to manage multiple buckets of S3 for big data and small data over the cloud platform. 

S3 Lifecycle Management


AUTHOR

Steve is a product-marketer and Engineer at Cloudysave who works with Cloud Management and Adoption team. Over the past years, he has collaborated with multiple teams to provide a robust and cost-effective architecture patterns to influence business and engineering decisions. His key areas of interests include Cloud Costs Management, Security and DevOps Best-Practices.