How to auto-delete files after a few days in S3, R2 and B2

Create one rule per lifetime, each limited to its own folder:

• tmp/1d/ deletes after 1 day
• tmp/7d/ deletes after 7 days
• tmp/30d/ deletes after 30 days

Upload a file to tmp/7d/2026/09/report.pdf and it's gone a week later. Everything outside tmp/ is never touched.

1. Open the bucket's Settings and find Object lifecycle rules, then select Add rule.
2. Name it, for example expire-7d, and set the prefix to tmp/7d/.
3. Choose to delete objects 7 days after they were uploaded and save.

Or with Wrangler:

npx wrangler r2 bucket lifecycle add your-bucket expire-7d tmp/7d/ --expire-days 7

1. Open the bucket, go to Management and select Create lifecycle rule.
2. Name the rule and choose Limit the scope using filters with the prefix tmp/7d/.
3. Under actions, select Expire current versions of objects and enter 7 days. In a versioned bucket, also permanently delete noncurrent versions.

With the AWS CLI:

{
  "Rules": [
    {
      "ID": "expire-7d",
      "Status": "Enabled",
      "Filter": { "Prefix": "tmp/7d/" },
      "Expiration": { "Days": 7 }
    }
  ]
}

aws s3api put-bucket-lifecycle-configuration --bucket your-bucket \
  --lifecycle-configuration file://lifecycle.json

This command replaces the bucket's whole lifecycle configuration, so include any rules that already exist.

In the bucket's Lifecycle Settings, choose custom rules and add one with the file name prefix tmp/7d/. B2 works in two stages: days from uploading to hiding and days from hiding to deleting. Set them to 6 and 1 for a file that disappears after about a week.

Lifecycle rules run in the background, typically once a day. Amazon S3 counts from the upload time, rounds up to the next midnight UTC, then queues the object for removal; you stop paying for it once it's expired. In practice, a file can stay reachable for up to about a day after its date. If a link must stop working at an exact time, use a presigned URL instead.