Python boto, list contents of specific dir in bucket

By default, when you do a get_bucket call in boto it tries to validate that you actually have access to that bucket by performing a HEAD request on the bucket URL. In this case, you don’t want boto to do that since you don’t have access to the bucket itself. So, do this:

bucket = conn.get_bucket('my-bucket-url', validate=False)

and then you should be able to do something like this to list objects:

for key in bucket.list(prefix='dir-in-bucket'): 
    <do something>

If you still get a 403 Errror, try adding a slash at the end of the prefix.

for key in bucket.list(prefix='dir-in-bucket/'): 
    <do something>

Note: this answer was written about the boto version 2 module, which is obsolete by now. At the moment (2020), boto3 is the standard module for working with AWS. See this question for more info: What is the difference between the AWS boto and boto3

If you want to list all the objects of a folder in your bucket, you can specify it while listing.

import boto
conn = boto.connect_s3(AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY)
bucket = conn.get_bucket(AWS_BUCKET_NAME)
for file in bucket.list("FOLDER_NAME/", "/"):
    <do something with required file>

Boto3 client:

import boto3

_BUCKET_NAME = 'mybucket'
_PREFIX = 'subfolder/'

client = boto3.client('s3', aws_access_key_id=ACCESS_KEY,
                            aws_secret_access_key=SECRET_KEY)

def ListFiles(client):
    """List files in specific S3 URL"""
    response = client.list_objects(Bucket=_BUCKET_NAME, Prefix=_PREFIX)
    for content in response.get('Contents', []):
        yield content.get('Key')

file_list = ListFiles(client)
for file in file_list:
    print 'File found: %s' % file

Using session

from boto3.session import Session

_BUCKET_NAME = 'mybucket'
_PREFIX = 'subfolder/'

session = Session(aws_access_key_id=ACCESS_KEY,
                  aws_secret_access_key=SECRET_KEY)

client = session.client('s3')

def ListFilesV1(client, bucket, prefix=''):
    """List files in specific S3 URL"""
    paginator = client.get_paginator('list_objects')
    for result in paginator.paginate(Bucket=bucket, Prefix=prefix,
                                     Delimiter='/'):
        for content in result.get('Contents', []):
            yield content.get('Key')

file_list = ListFilesV1(client, _BUCKET_NAME, prefix=_PREFIX)
for file in file_list:
    print 'File found: %s' % file

The following code will list all the files in specific dir of the S3 bucket:

import boto3

s3 = boto3.client('s3')

def get_all_s3_keys(s3_path):
    """
    Get a list of all keys in an S3 bucket.

    :param s3_path: Path of S3 dir.
    """
    keys = []

    if not s3_path.startswith('s3://'):
        s3_path = 's3://' + s3_path

    bucket = s3_path.split('//')[1].split('/')[0]
    prefix = '/'.join(s3_path.split('//')[1].split('/')[1:])

    kwargs = {'Bucket': bucket, 'Prefix': prefix}
    while True:
        resp = s3.list_objects_v2(**kwargs)
        for obj in resp['Contents']:
            keys.append(obj['Key'])

        try:
            kwargs['ContinuationToken'] = resp['NextContinuationToken']
        except KeyError:
            break

    return keys

This can be done using:

s3_client = boto3.client('s3')
objects = s3_client.list_objects_v2(Bucket='bucket_name')
for obj in objects['Contents']:
  print(obj['Key'])

I just had this same problem, and this code does the trick.

import boto3

s3 = boto3.resource("s3")
s3_bucket = s3.Bucket("bucket-name")
dir = "dir-in-bucket"
files_in_s3 = [f.key.split(dir + "/")[1] for f in 
s3_bucket.objects.filter(Prefix=dir).all()]