Amazon S3 now supports enabling S3 Object Lock on existing buckets

Amazon S3 now allows you to enable S3 Object Lock for existing buckets with just a few clicks and to enable S3 Replication for buckets using S3 Object Lock. These improvements make it even easier to adopt S3 Object Lock, which protects objects from being overwritten or deleted.

S3 Object Lock makes objects immutable for a fixed amount of time by assigning a Retain Until Date or indefinitely by applying a Legal Hold. Once you enable S3 Object Lock on an existing bucket, you can apply a default retention period for all new objects that you create. To lock existing objects, you can add retention parameters to each object in that bucket, or use S3 Batch Operations to configure retention for tens to billions of objects at a time. Additionally, you can enable S3 Replication for buckets with S3 Object Lock enabled to create immutable copies of your data in the same or different AWS account or Region.

S3 Object Lock has been assessed for SEC Rule 17a-4(f), FINRA Rule 4511, and CFTC Regulation 1.31 by Cohasset Associates and can be used to meet regulatory and compliance requirements.

S3 Object Lock for existing buckets and S3 Replication for S3 Object Lock buckets are available in all AWS Regions, including the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. You can use the AWS API, SDK, CLI, or Amazon S3 console to enable them. To learn more about S3 Object Lock, please visit the Amazon S3 User Guide.