How to connect to Amazon S3 in China Region

At the end of 2013, Amazon Web Services Team announced the new China (Beijing) Region which aims to help customers reduce latency to end-users based in China. Three years later, at the end of 2017, the new Ningxia region was announced.

With S3 Browser Freeware you can easily start working with Amazon S3 storage in China. Both regions are fully supported.

To connect to Amazon S3 in China:

Please note: to start working with Amazon S3 in the China Region you need to sign up for a separate set of account credentials unique to the China Region. Customers with existing AWS credentials will not be able to access resources in China and vice versa.

1. Start S3 Browser and click Accounts -> Add New Account.

Click Accounts -> Add New Account to add new account.

The Add New Account dialog will open:

Add New Amazon S3 in China Account dialog

2. Choose Amazon S3 in China as account type.

3. Specify Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.

4. Turn on Encrypt Access Keys with a password - if you would like to protect your Access Key ID and Secret Access Key with a master password. You will be asked for a master password each time you open the account.

5. Turn on Use secure transfer (SSL/TLS) - if you would like to encrypt all communications with the storage.

6. Click Add new account.

You can now choose the newly added account from the Accounts menu:

Click Accounts -> Account Name to switch between accounts.

Advanced Account Settings

You may also configure additional settings when adding a new account or editing an existing account.

To open advanced account settings, click the advanced settings link located at the bottom-left corner of the dialog.

The Advanced Account Settings dialog will open:

Advanced account settings

You may configure the following settings here:

Enable Dual-Stack Endpoints (IPv4/IPv6) - When checked, S3 Browser will use dual-stack endpoints to access storage, allowing connections over both IPv4 and IPv6. This improves compatibility with networks that support IPv6.

List All My Buckets When Account Assigned - When checked, S3 Browser will perform the s3:ListAllMyBuckets call when the account is assigned. If the account does not have permission to list all buckets, you can uncheck this option to avoid failed tasks and warnings in the log.

Check CloudFront Distributions When Account Assigned - When checked, S3 Browser will perform the cloudfront:ListDistributions call when the account is assigned, allowing it to set a special icon for buckets used as origins for CloudFront distributions. If the account does not have permission to list CloudFront distributions, you can uncheck this option to avoid failed tasks and warnings in the log.

External Buckets - You can edit the external buckets associated with the account. Each bucket should be listed on a new line. Optional paths are also supported, with a slash used as the delimiter (e.g., my-bucket/and/optional/path).