Deleting an Amazon S3 Bucket

Introduction

You can delete an Amazon S3 bucket using the S3 console. You will delete all objects within the bucket as well.

Instructions

1. In the AWS Management Console search bar, enter S3, and click the S3 result under Services:

From the top level of the S3 console, notice the Delete button is not actionable.

2. Check the name of your bucket to select it:

3. With the bucket selected, click Empty:

The Empty bucket form page will load.

It's not possible to delete a bucket that contains objects.

4. To confirm that you want to delete all objects in this bucket, in the textbox at the bottom, enter permanently delete and click Empty:

5. To exit the empty bucket page, at the top-right, click Exit:

You will be returned to the Buckets page.

6. To delete your bucket, select it in the list, and click Delete

7. To confirm that you want to delete the bucket, in the textbox, enter the name of your bucket:

8. Click Delete bucket to delete the bucket.

Warning: Make sure to delete all the files/folders inside the bucket before deleting it, otherwise AWS won't allow you to delete the S3 bucket.

Important! Notice the message from AWS: "Amazon S3 buckets are unique. If you delete this bucket, you may lose the bucket name to another AWS user."

If retaining the bucket name is important to you, consider using the Empty bucket feature and not actually deleting the bucket.