Amazon S3 Simple Storage Service Part 1

In this guide you’ll create your first Amazon S3 bucket, explore the main console screens, and upload an object. The steps below preserve the console workflows and screenshots so you can follow along in the same sequence.

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1. Open S3 in the AWS Console

Sign in to the AWS Management Console and search for S3. If you have no buckets yet, the S3 dashboard shows a prompt to create one. If you already have buckets, you will see a list and the same “Create bucket” action. Important: the region selector at the top of the console controls the default region view, but S3 displays a global list of your buckets. When you create a bucket you explicitly choose the region in which that individual bucket will reside.

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2. Create a bucket (name and region)

Click Create bucket and enter a globally unique name for your bucket. Bucket names must be unique across all AWS accounts and regions, so pick a name that is unlikely to be taken (for example, include your initials, project name, or a timestamp). Example of the Create bucket page showing a chosen name and region: For full naming requirements, see the S3 documentation:

• Bucket naming rules — AWS S3 Documentation

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3. Key Create bucket settings (overview)

On the Create bucket page you’ll configure several important options. Below is a concise summary of the common settings and their purpose: For this lesson we leave defaults (bucket locked down, no versioning or default encryption) and click Create bucket. After creation the new bucket appears in the list with its region and creation time — click the bucket name to open its detail view.

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4. Bucket Properties

The Properties tab displays high-level metadata and status flags:

• Bucket ARN (the canonical identifier)
• Region and creation date
• Status of features (versioning, default encryption, MFA delete)
• Links to configure server access logging, CloudTrail data events, event notifications, transfer acceleration, object lock, requester pays, and static website hosting

Some property panes show sources of additional visibility and control:

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5. Permissions tab — access control

The Permissions tab centralizes who can access the bucket and its objects. By default:

• Block Public Access is turned on and prevents public access
• Only the creating AWS account has full access
• You can add bucket policies, IAM policies, or ACLs to grant other principals access

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6. Metrics and Management

• Metrics (CloudWatch) show storage size, object count, and request rates.
• Management contains lifecycle policies, replication rules, inventory, analytics, and access points — use these to control costs, durability, and access over time.

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7. Upload an object

Open the Objects tab and click Upload (or drag-and-drop files/folders). During upload you can:

• Add single files or a folder
• Set the destination path (key prefix)
• Choose a storage class (Standard, Intelligent‑Tiering, Standard‑IA, One Zone‑IA, Glacier, etc.)
• Set metadata and permissions (defaults inherit bucket settings)

S3 storage classes trade off cost and availability. For most general-purpose objects choose Standard. You can change the class per object or add lifecycle rules later to move objects to cheaper tiers. Click Upload to start the transfer. When complete the object appears in the bucket’s object list showing name, size, and last modified timestamp.

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Next steps and references

Now that you’ve created a bucket and uploaded an object, consider these follow-up topics:

• Enable versioning and practice restoring older object versions
• Configure lifecycle policies to move or expire objects automatically
• Turn on default encryption (SSE-S3 or SSE-KMS) for data-at-rest protection
• Set up replication rules if you need cross-region redundancy
• Create fine-grained access using bucket policies and IAM policies

References:

• Amazon S3 documentation: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/s3/
• S3 bucket naming rules: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/bucketnamingrules.html

This completes the basics: creating an S3 bucket, inspecting its properties and permissions, and uploading your first object. Future lessons will dive deeper into versioning, lifecycle rules, encryption, replication, and advanced access patterns.