If you upload a file to S3, it becomes an object and is set as private by default on AWS. In our example I uploaded a JPG image to S3 using WinSCP (free of charge, Windows).

If you click on the object in S3, you get the information about it. If you then open this object in the browser via the URL of the object in a new tab, you will receive an error message: “Access denied.”

If you want to make a file publicly available on the Internet for everyone, you can do this relatively quickly with S3.

Step 1: Edit public access of your bucket

Step 2: Disable option to block public access

Step 3: Create a bucket policy (scroll down to copy the code)

Step 4: Check your settings

If you want to share the entire bucket publicly on the Internet, you can replace the file name 350937254.jpg with an asterisk “*”. The code required for step 3 is:

{
    "Version": "2008-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "AllowPublicRead",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Principal": {
                "AWS": "*"
            },
            "Action": "s3:GetObject",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::files-original/350937254.jpg"
        }
    ]
}