--- name: cloud-object-storage-upload title: Upload data description: After getting your storage organized into buckets, it's time to add some objects by uploading data. last-updated: 2026-07-02 --- > ## Documentation Index > The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?format=markdown > The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt > Use these files to discover more information as needed. # Upload data {: #upload} After getting your storage organized into buckets, it's time to add some objects by uploading data. {: shortdesc} Depending on how you want to use your storage, there are different ways to get data into the system. A data scientist has a few large files that are used for analytics, a systems administrator needs to keep database backups synchronized with local files, and a developer is writing software that needs to read and write millions of files. Each of these scenarios is best served by different methods of data ingest. Some applications might want to restrict a user or Service ID to only uploading data, without any access to reading data in a bucket. This is possible through the Object Writer [IAM role](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?topic=cloud-object-storage-iam&format=markdown). {: tip} ## Using the console {: #upload-console} Typically, using the web-based console is not the most common way to use Object Storage. Objects are limited to 200 MB and the file name and key are identical. Multiple objects can be uploaded at the same time, and if the browser allows for multiple threads each object will be uploaded by using multiple parts in parallel. Support for larger object sizes and improved performance (depending on network factors) is provided by [Aspera high-speed transfer](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?topic=cloud-object-storage-aspera&format=markdown). ## Using a compatible tool {: #upload-tool} Some users want to use a stand-alone utility to interact with their storage. As the Cloud Object Storage API supports the most common set of S3 API operations, many S3-compatible tools can also connect to Object Storage by using [HMAC credentials](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?topic=cloud-object-storage-uhc-hmac-credentials-main&format=markdown). Some examples include file explorers like [Cyberduck](https://cyberduck.io/) or [Transmit](https://panic.com/transmit/), backup utilities like [Cloudberry](https://www.cloudberrylab.com/) and [Duplicati](https://www.duplicati.com/), command-line utilities like [s3cmd](https://github.com/s3tools/s3cmd) or [Minio Client](https://github.com/minio/mc), and many others. You can also search the IBM Cloud Catalog for third-party services that allow you to move data to Cloud Object Storage, for example, [Lyve Data Transfer Services](https://cloud.ibm.com/catalog/services/lyve-data-transfer-services). ## Using the API {: #upload-api} Most programmatic applications of Object Storage use an SDK (such as [Java](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?topic=cloud-object-storage-java&format=markdown), [node.js](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?topic=cloud-object-storage-node&format=markdown), or [Python](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?topic=cloud-object-storage-python&format=markdown)) or the [Cloud Object Storage API](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?topic=cloud-object-storage-compatibility-api&format=markdown). Typically objects are uploaded in [multiple parts](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?topic=cloud-object-storage-large-objects&format=markdown), with part size and number of parts configured by a Transfer Manager class. ## Conditional requests {: #upload-conditional} When making a request to read or write data, it is possible to set conditions on that request to avoid unnecessary operations. This is accomplished by using the following pre-conditional HTTP headers: `If-Match`, `If-None-Match`, `If-Modified-Since`, and `If-Unmodified-Since`. It is generally preferable to use `If-Match` because the granularity of the `Last-Modified` value is only in seconds, and might not be sufficient to avoid race conditions in some applications. {: note} ### Using `If-Match` {: #upload-if-match} On an object PUT, HEAD, or GET request, [the `If-Match` header](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7232#section-3.1) checks to see whether a provided `Etag` (MD5 hash of the object content) matches the provided `Etag` value. If this value matches, the operation proceeds. If the match fails, the system returns a `412 Precondition Failed` error. >If-Match is most often used with state-changing methods (for example, POST, PUT, DELETE) to prevent accidental overwrites when multiple user agents might be acting in parallel on the same resource (that is, to prevent the "lost update" problem). ### Using `If-None-Match` {: #upload-if-none-match} On an object PUT, HEAD, or GET request, [the `If-None-Match` header](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7232#section-3.2) checks to see whether a provided `Etag` (MD5 hash of the object content) matches the provided `Etag` value. If this value does not match, the operation proceeds. If the match succeeds, the system returns a `412 Precondition Failed` error on a PUT and a `304 Not Modified` on GET or HEAD. >If-None-Match is primarily used in conditional GET requests to enable efficient updates of cached information with a minimum amount of transaction overhead. When a client desires to update one or more stored responses that have entity-tags, the client SHOULD generate an If-None-Match header field containing a list of those entity-tags when making a GET request; this allows recipient servers to send a 304 (Not Modified) response to indicate when one of those stored responses matches the selected representation. ### Using `If-Modified-Since` {: #upload-if-modified-since} On an object HEAD or GET request, [the `If-Modified-Since` header](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7232#section-3.3) checks to see whether the object's `Last-Modified` value (for example `Sat, 14 March 2020 19:43:31 GMT`) is newer than a provided value. If the object has been modified, the operation proceeds. If the object has not been modified, the system returns a `304 Not Modified`. >If-Modified-Since is typically used for two distinct purposes: 1) to allow efficient updates of a cached representation that does not have an entity-tag and 2) to limit the scope of a web traversal to resources that have recently changed. ### Using `If-Unmodified-Since` {: #upload-if-unmodified-since} On an object PUT, HEAD, or GET request, [the `If-Unmodified-Since` header](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7232#section-3.3) checks to see whether the object's `Last-Modified` value (for example `Sat, 14 March 2020 19:43:31 GMT`) is equal to or earlier than a provided value. If the object has not been modified, the operation proceeds. If the `Last-Modified` value is more recent, the system returns a `412 Precondition Failed` error on a PUT and a `304 Not Modified` on GET or HEAD. > If-Unmodified-Since is most often used with state-changing methods (for example, POST, PUT, DELETE) to prevent accidental overwrites when multiple user agents might be acting in parallel on a resource that does not supply entity-tags with its representations (that is, to prevent the "lost update" problem). It can also be used with safe methods to abort a request if the selected representation does not match one already stored (or partially stored) from a prior request. ## Search and filter objects {: #search-filter-objects} Use the Object Storage console to search and filter objects by using name, size, date, or extension. For more details, see [Search and filter objects in the UI](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cloud-object-storage?topic=cloud-object-storage-getting-started-cloud-object-storage&format=markdown).