Deleting all objects from a bucket

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Updated at September 26, 2025

Warning

By default, the delete operation is irreversible. You can only restore the objects that were uploaded with versioning on.

Note

To automatically delete partially loaded objects in Object Storage, configure a lifecycle rule.

To clear a bucket and avoid storagecharges:

Yandex Cloud CLI

AWS CLI

Python (boto3)

API

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud CLI installed yet, install and initialize it.

By default, the CLI uses the folder specified when creating the profile. To change the default folder, use the yc config set folder-id <folder_ID> command. You can also set a different folder for any specific command using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

See the description of the CLI command for deleting objects:
```
yc storage s3api delete-objects --help
```

Get a list of buckets in the default folder:

yc storage bucket list

Result:

+------------------+----------------------+-------------+-----------------------+---------------------+
|       NAME       |      FOLDER ID       |  MAX SIZE   | DEFAULT STORAGE CLASS |     CREATED AT      |
+------------------+----------------------+-------------+-----------------------+---------------------+
| first-bucket     | b1gmit33ngp6******** | 53687091200 | STANDARD              | 2022-12-16 13:58:18 |
+------------------+----------------------+-------------+-----------------------+---------------------+

Prepare a JSON file listing the objects to delete. Here is an example of its contents:

{
    "Objects": [
        {
            "Key": "<object_key>"
        },
        {
            "Key": "<object_key>"
        },
        ...
    ]
}

Where:

Objects: Array of objects to delete.
Key: Object key.

Run this command:

yc storage s3api delete-objects \
  --bucket <bucket_name> \
  --delete <path_to_JSON_file>

Where:

--bucket: Name of your bucket.
--delete: Path to the JSON file listing the objects to delete.

Result:

deleted:
  - key: file-1
    version_id: "null"
  - key: file-2
    version_id: "null"
request_id: 4c35e7d4********

Alternative command:

yc storage s3 rm \
  s3://<bucket_name>/ \
  --recursive

Where --recursive is the parameter to delete all objects.

Result:

delete: s3://my-bucket/object-1.txt
delete: s3://my-bucket/object-2.txt
...
delete: s3://my-bucket/object-n.txt

If you do not have the AWS CLI yet, install and configure it.

Create a variable containing the bucket name:
```
BUCKET_NAME=<bucket_name>
```

Delete all object versions from the bucket:

aws s3api delete-objects \
  --endpoint-url https://storage.yandexcloud.net \
  --bucket $BUCKET_NAME \
  --delete \
    "$(aws s3api list-object-versions \
      --endpoint-url https://storage.yandexcloud.net \
      --bucket $BUCKET_NAME \
      --query '{Objects: Versions[].{Key: Key, VersionId: VersionId}}' \
      --max-items 1000)"

You can also use --max-keys instead of the --max-items parameter.

Result:

{
    "Deleted": [
        {
            "Key": "object_000",
            "VersionId": "0005CDD3********"
        },
        {
            "Key": "object_001",
            "VersionId": "0005CDD3********"
        },
        ...
    ]
}

Using this command, you can delete a maximum of 1,000 object versions at a time due to the aws s3api delete-objects limitations. If your bucket contains more versions, run the command multiple times.

For buckets with enabled versioning, remove all delete markers:

aws s3api delete-objects \
  --endpoint-url https://storage.yandexcloud.net \
  --bucket $BUCKET_NAME \
  --delete \
    "$(aws s3api list-object-versions \
      --endpoint-url https://storage.yandexcloud.net \
      --bucket $BUCKET_NAME \
      --query '{Objects: DeleteMarkers[].{Key: Key, VersionId: VersionId}}' \
      --max-items 1000)"

You can also use --max-keys instead of the --max-items parameter.

Result:

{
    "Deleted": [
        {
            "Key": "object_034",
            "DeleteMarker": true,
            "DeleteMarkerVersionId": "0005CDD3********"
        },
        {
            "Key": "object_057",
            "DeleteMarker": true,
            "DeleteMarkerVersionId": "0005CDD3********"
        },
        ...
    ]
}

Using this command, you can delete a maximum of 1,000 delete markers at a time due to the aws s3api delete-objects limitations. If your bucket contains more delete markers, run the command multiple times.

Delete partially uploaded objects:

aws s3api list-multipart-uploads \
  --endpoint-url https://storage.yandexcloud.net \
  --bucket $BUCKET_NAME \
| jq -r '.Uploads[] | "--key \"\(.Key)\" --upload-id \(.UploadId)"' \
| while read -r line; do
  eval 
    "aws s3api abort-multipart-upload \
      --endpoint-url https://storage.yandexcloud.net \
      --bucket $BUCKET_NAME \
      $line";
done

Get a list of object parts remaining in the bucket:

aws s3api list-multipart-uploads \
  --endpoint-url https://storage.yandexcloud.net \
  --bucket $BUCKET_NAME \
| jq -r '.Uploads[] | "--key \"\(.Key)\" --upload-id \(.UploadId)"' \
| while read -r line; do
  eval 
    "aws s3api list-parts \
      --endpoint-url https://storage.yandexcloud.net \
      --bucket $BUCKET_NAME \
      $line";
done

The list may include parts of objects whose upload started before and completed after the preceding step. If the list is not empty, repeat steps 4 and 5.

Run the following code:

import boto3

bucket_name = '<bucket_name>'
s3 = boto3.resource('s3',
    endpoint_url='https://storage.yandexcloud.net',
    aws_access_key_id='<key_ID>',
    aws_secret_access_key='<secret_key>')
bucket = s3.Bucket(bucket_name)

# Deleting all versions (works for non-versioned buckets too).
bucket.object_versions.delete()

# Aborting all multipart uploads, which also deletes all parts.
for multipart_upload in bucket.multipart_uploads.iterator():
    # Part uploads that are currently in progress may or may not succeed,
    # so it might be necessary to abort a multipart upload multiple times.
    while len(list(multipart_upload.parts.all())) > 0:
        multipart_upload.abort()

Use the deleteMultipleObjects S3 API method.

In the management console, the information about the number of objects and storage space used in the bucket is updated with a few minutes' delay.

Deleting all objects from a bucket

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