Amazon S3 guide

How to configure Amazon S3 and use it in ShareX

Get AWS account

Create policy

We are going to create this policy to increase security by granting only the PutObject permission, which is used when uploading files.

Open policies page
Press Create policy
Click Service, type S3 and then select S3
Click Actions, type PutObject and then select both PutObject and PutObjectAcl to grant only the PutObject permission
Click Resources, make sure Specific is selected and then click the Add ARN link
Select Any to give access to all your buckets

Note: You can uncheck Any later if you prefer to use a specific bucket name instead.

Select Any for the object name as well
Press Add in the Add ARN(s) dialog
Press Review policy
Give a name for the policy, for example ShareX_PutObject
Press Create policy

Create group

Open groups page
Press Create New Group
Give a name for the group, for example ShareX
Press Next Step
Click Policy Type dropdown filter and select Customer Managed
Click the checkbox of your recently created policy which should be named ShareX_PutObject if you used that example name
Press Next Step
Press Create Group

Create user

Open users page
Press Add user
Type the username you want
In the access type section, click the checkbox for Programmatic access
Click Next: Permissions
Click the checkbox of your recently created group which should be named ShareX if you used that example name
Press Next: Tags
Press Next: Review
Press Create user

Important: On this page, either make a record of Access key ID and Secret access key somewhere or press Download .csv to save them as a file. We need these later in ShareX.

Press Close

[Optional] Secure your account

You don't need to do these, but it is suggested to keep your account secure.

Open Identity and Access Management page (Dashboard)
Make sure all security status items are green on this page

You may need to activate multi-factor authentication and create a password policy.

Create S3 bucket

The bucket is where your uploaded files will be stored.

Open S3 Management Console
Press Create bucket

Important: If you are going to use your own domain with S3 then the bucket name should be the same as your CNAME. For example, if you want to use this URL: https://i.example.com/image.png then bucket name should be i.example.com. Click here for more info.

Type the bucket name you want
Select the region you want the bucket to be hosted in

Tip: You can use this website to check the ping of regions: cloudping.info

If you want your uploaded files to be accessible by URL, then make sure Block all public access option is unchecked
Press Create bucket

[Optional] Configure DNS for custom domain

If you are going to use your own domain then you must configure DNS.

For example, assume that you are using Cloudflare, your bucket name is i.example.com, and it is stored in the EU (Frankfurt) region. Your DNS settings will then be:

Type: CNAME
Name: i
Target: i.example.com.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com

You can find a list of region endpoints from ShareX main window -> Destinations -> Destination settings -> Amazon S3 tab -> Endpoints.

So the target should be {bucketname}.{endpoint}

Check here for more information.

Configure ShareX Amazon S3 settings

From ShareX main window, open Destinations -> Destination settings
Select Amazon S3 tab
Use access key ID and secret access key that you noted down previously
For the endpoints section select the region that you chose while creating the bucket
Enter the bucket name you created
For the upload path, it is recommended to use %y/%mo, which creates subfolders such as 2020/04
If you are using your own domain, then check Use custom domain and fill the text box, for example: https://i.example.com
You can now close the destination settings window
In the main window, make sure to select Amazon S3 as the destination for the image uploader, text uploader, and file uploader

Now you are ready to use Amazon S3 in ShareX!