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Connect Amazon S3

Connect your Amazon S3 storage to Fileflare for full control over file hosting, bandwidth, and pricing.

Beka Rice Avatar

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Beka Rice

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Connect your own Amazon S3 bucket to Fileflare so files are hosted on your AWS account, not Fileflare’s storage. You control storage costs, bandwidth costs, and retention — Fileflare just acts as the delivery layer between your store and the bucket.

Available on the Growth plan and higher. These are advanced settings — you should be familiar with AWS IAM and S3 buckets before configuring. Cloudflare R2 is generally cheaper and easier; use R2 unless you specifically need AWS.

When you’d use this

  • You’re selling large digital files and don’t want to pay Fileflare’s per-GB storage tier.
  • Your team already runs in AWS and you want files alongside your other infrastructure.
  • You need fine-grained control over bucket versioning, replication, or lifecycle rules.
  • You want to upload files directly to S3 (via the AWS console, CLI, or other tooling) and have Fileflare read them.

Set up the AWS side

1. Create the bucket

  1. In AWS, create a new S3 bucket. Pick any name and region.
  2. Block all public access (default).
Creating an S3 bucket in AWS

2. Configure CORS on the bucket

Open Fileflare → Settings → Configure custom S3 and copy the CORS config text shown there. In AWS, go to your bucket → Permissions → CORS → Edit, paste the config, and save.

Setting CORS on an S3 bucket

3. Create an IAM user with API access

  1. In AWS IAM, add a new user with programmatic access.
  2. Attach a policy that grants read/write/list on the bucket. AmazonS3FullAccess works for testing; for production, scope to just your bucket.
  3. Save the Access key ID and Secret access key — you’ll paste them into Fileflare.

Connect Fileflare to the bucket

  1. In Fileflare, go to Settings → Configure custom S3.
  2. Paste the Access key ID into Access Key.
  3. Paste the Secret access key into Secret Key.
  4. Enter your Bucket name and Region (find these in your bucket’s URL in the AWS console).
  5. Enter the regional Endpoint URL from AWS’s S3 endpoints page — use the row from the “Amazon S3 regular endpoints” table that matches your region. The URL should start with s3..
  6. Click Save.
  7. Test by uploading an asset from the Assets page. If it succeeds, you’re done.
S3 connection settings in Fileflare

Connection options

Use path-style endpoint

Legacy compatibility flag for older S3 clients. Path-style puts the bucket in the URL path; virtual-hosted style puts it as a subdomain. Leave off unless your S3-compatible service requires path-style.

Delete files in S3 when removed from the app

When enabled, deleting an asset in Fileflare also removes the file from your bucket. Off by default — leaving the file in your bucket is the safer default.

Rename my files to keep their name unique

When enabled, uploaded files are stored under a UUID4 filename in the bucket (e.g. 3a7b...pdf). The original filename is kept in Fileflare’s database for display and customer delivery. Prevents accidental overwrites if two uploads share a name. UUID4 renames are one-way — they can’t be reverted.

Common issues

  • Upload fails with a CORS error — the CORS config wasn’t saved on the bucket, or the bucket is in a different region than what’s set in Fileflare. Re-paste CORS, save, and confirm region matches.
  • “Access denied” on upload or read — the IAM user’s permissions don’t include the necessary actions. Confirm the policy attached to the user grants s3:PutObject, s3:GetObject, s3:ListBucket, and (if you enabled the delete option) s3:DeleteObject.
  • Endpoint URL doesn’t work — make sure you’re using the regional endpoint from the “Amazon S3 regular endpoints” table, starting with s3. — not the virtual-hosted-style URL with the bucket name.
  • I disconnected S3 and my files disappeared — if you had Delete files in S3 when removed from the app enabled, removing assets in Fileflare also wiped them from S3. The setting is destructive — leave off unless you specifically want sync-delete behavior.

FAQ

Can I switch the connected S3 bucket later?

Yes. Add the new bucket connection and mark it primary. Existing files stay on the old bucket; new uploads go to the new one. To migrate old files, use Replace asset on each — the file gets re-uploaded to the new bucket.

Can I use multiple S3-compatible buckets?

Yes — Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, DigitalOcean Spaces, Wasabi, and others all work via the same custom-S3 connection.

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