What you need
Every S3-compatible store signs requests with a pair of keys:
- An access key ID, the public half, such as
AKIA…on Amazon. - A secret access key, the private half. AnyBucket stores it in your login keychain, one item per bookmark.
Create a key with access to the buckets you need, and nothing more. Most providers let you limit a key to one bucket and to read or read-and-write.
Connect in five steps
- Open AnyBucket and press ⇧⌘K (File → Connect to Server…).
- Under Cloud Storage, pick your provider's tile. Use S3-compatible for anything not listed.
- Fill in the one field that says where the storage is: a region, an account ID or an endpoint (see the table below).
- Paste the access key ID and the secret access key. Leave Save Secret in Keychain on unless you'd rather type it each time.
- Optionally type a bucket and folder, give the bookmark a nickname, and press Connect.
The bookmark joins the start page, each pane's source menu and the ⌘K palette.
Where each provider lives
Each tile asks for one thing and builds the endpoint from it:
| Tile | You type | Endpoint AnyBucket uses |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon S3 | A region, optional (us-east-1) |
Amazon's own |
| Cloudflare R2 | Your account ID | https://<account>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com |
| Backblaze B2 | The bucket's region (us-west-004) |
https://s3.<region>.backblazeb2.com |
| Wasabi | A region (us-east-1) |
https://s3.<region>.wasabisys.com |
| DigitalOcean Spaces | A datacenter (nyc3) |
https://<region>.digitaloceanspaces.com |
| Google Cloud Storage | Nothing | https://storage.googleapis.com |
| S3-compatible | The server's address | Whatever you type |
Google Cloud Storage works through its S3-compatible interface, which uses HMAC keys: create an access key and secret for a service account or your user in the Cloud Storage settings, then paste them as above.
MinIO and self-hosted stores
For MinIO, LocalStack and other self-hosted servers, pick S3-compatible and type the server's address with its port, such as https://minio.example.com:9000.
Then turn on path-style addressing in the bookmark. Amazon puts the bucket in the host name (bucket.s3.amazonaws.com); most self-hosted stores expect it in the path (minio.example.com/bucket). If a store connects but lists nothing, or refuses every request, path-style is the first thing to check. See troubleshooting.
Copying, moving and big files
A bucket behaves like a folder on your Mac:
- Upload: put This Mac in the other pane, mark files with Space and press F5. Drag files in from Finder works too.
- Download: the same, the other way round, or ⇧⌘D to download to a folder you pick.
- Large files go up in parts with multipart uploads, and a dropped connection retries on a fresh one.
- Inside the same server, copies run server-side with CopyObject: nothing comes down to your Mac.
- Between providers, say from Amazon S3 to Cloudflare R2, open one in each pane and press F5. Files stream through a small spool on your Mac. See copy files between servers.
⇧⌘C copies a file's URL, and F3 opens it in Quick Look.
Keep a folder in step
To back up a folder to a bucket, put the folder in one pane and the bucket in the other and press ⌥F5. Compare & Sync lists every difference, and you choose to mirror one way or sync both ways. See sync a folder with a server.
