default-object-retention · shipping · also S3 bucket default retention, DefaultRetention

Default object retention (S3)

Default object retention is an S3 bucket rule that supplies retention settings to new object versions when the upload omits explicit retention settings.

Related Observatory article: Default object retention (S3) on hesela.com

Changing a bucket default does not protect or revise existing versions; those require a separate retention operation. [1] An authorized upload's explicit mode and period override the default, so the default alone is not an enforced minimum. It may also initialize variable retention through an event hold. [4]

Relations

related

Object lock, Object versioning, Legal hold (storage), Backup manifest

Advantages

• A bucket-level rule can assign retention to new uploads without repeating settings in each upload request. [2]

Limitations

• Replicated source retention controls override destination defaults; without source controls, the configured destination default applies if present. [3]
• Event-hold policy conditions check supplied request values, not inherited defaults; control permission to change bucket configuration separately. [5]

Citations

1. AWS Storage Blog: Applying Amazon S3 Object Lock at scale for petabytes of existing data (accessed 2026-10-20)
2. Amazon S3 API: PutObjectLockConfiguration (accessed 2026-10-20)
3. Amazon S3: What does Amazon S3 replicate? Object Lock retention precedence (accessed 2026-10-20)
4. Amazon S3: Configuring S3 Object Lock (accessed 2026-10-20)
5. Amazon S3: Object Lock considerations (accessed 2026-10-20)

Further reading

6. Hesela: Backup verification is not a restore test (accessed 2026-10-20)

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