S3 Explorer
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S3 browser for Linux and Ubuntu — the options

In short: most popular graphical S3 clients run only on Windows or macOS. On Linux, the options are a native desktop app such as S3 Explorer (AppImage, .deb, .rpm), rclone's browser-based GUI, or mounting a bucket as a folder with s3fs or rclone mount. The command line (aws s3, rclone) covers scripting.

Why it is harder on Linux

The well-known S3 GUIs are not available on Linux:

  • CS Browser (formerly S3 Browser) is Windows-only.
  • Cyberduck ships for macOS and Windows; on Linux only its command-line client, duck, is available.
  • WinSCP is Windows-only.

Option 1: a native desktop app

S3 Explorer is built for Windows, macOS and Linux from the same code. Linux packages are published for each release:

Format x86_64 ARM64
AppImage (any distribution) amd64.AppImage aarch64.AppImage
Debian, Ubuntu amd64.deb arm64.deb
Fedora, RHEL, openSUSE x86_64.rpm aarch64.rpm

On Ubuntu: download the .deb from the releases page and install it with sudo apt install ./S3.Explorer_<version>_amd64.deb.

It connects to AWS S3 and S3-compatible storage with 25 provider presets, and keeps a local index for searching buckets with millions of objects. The free version has every feature, with up to 5 connection profiles.

Option 2: rclone's web GUI

rclone supports S3 and dozens of other backends. rclone gui starts a local web interface to browse remotes, transfer files and manage mounts. The rclone documentation still labels the command beta and warns against exposing it to the network.

Good for: people who already use rclone and want an occasional visual view.

Option 3: mount the bucket as a folder

s3fs-fuse mounts a bucket as a local directory, so any file manager (Nautilus, Dolphin) can browse it. Its README lists the limits that come from S3 itself: random writes rewrite the whole object, directory listings are slow over the network, and renames are not atomic.

rclone mount does the same through rclone, with a local cache (--vfs-cache-mode) that makes editing files more practical.

Good for: legacy tools that only read files from disk. Less suited to browsing very large buckets.

Option 4: the command line

aws s3 ls, aws s3 cp and rclone are the right tools for scripts and automation, and work on every distribution.

Which one to choose

  • Daily browsing, previews, editing, several providers: a native app.
  • Already on rclone: rclone gui.
  • A program that needs a filesystem path: s3fs or rclone mount.
  • Automation: the CLI.

Sources

Connection guides

Download S3 Explorer