Delete unneeded files from an OSS on CloudBox bucket - Object Storage Service

You can delete unneeded files (objects) from an OSS on CloudBox bucket in several ways.

Warning

Deleted objects cannot be recovered. Before you delete an object, confirm that it is no longer needed. Proceed with caution.

Deletion rules

OSS supports the manual and automatic deletion of single or multiple objects.

Manual deletion
You can delete one or more files using the OSS console, the ossutil command line interface (CLI), API operations, software development kits (SDKs), or the ossbrowser graphical management tool. A single request can delete up to 1,000 files. To delete more files or entire folders, you can send multiple requests.
Automatic deletion
To periodically delete files created before a specific date, files with a specific prefix, or all files in a bucket, you can configure a lifecycle rule to delete the files automatically. This method reduces the number of delete requests and improves deletion efficiency. For more information, see CloudBox lifecycle rules.

Delete a single object

Use the Java SDK

To delete multiple Objects, you must use Java SDK 3.15.0 or later.

import com.aliyun.oss.ClientException;
import com.aliyun.oss.OSS;
import com.aliyun.oss.OSSClientBuilder;
import com.aliyun.oss.OSSException;
import com.aliyun.oss.common.auth.DefaultCredentialProvider;
import com.aliyun.oss.common.comm.SignVersion;
import com.aliyun.oss.ClientBuilderConfiguration;
import com.aliyun.oss.common.auth.CredentialsProviderFactory;
import com.aliyun.oss.common.auth.EnvironmentVariableCredentialsProvider;

public class Demo {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // Specify the Endpoint for the region where the CloudBox is located.
        String endpoint = "https://cb-f8z7yvzgwfkl9q0h****.cn-hangzhou.oss-cloudbox.aliyuncs.com";
        // Obtain access credentials from environment variables. Before you run this code, make sure that the OSS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and OSS_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET environment variables are set.
        EnvironmentVariableCredentialsProvider credentialsProvider = CredentialsProviderFactory.newEnvironmentVariableCredentialsProvider();
        // Specify the name of the OSS on CloudBox bucket, for example, examplebucket.
        String bucketName = "examplebucket";
        // Specify the region where the OSS on CloudBox bucket is located.
        String region = "cn-hangzhou";
        // Specify the CloudBox ID.
        String cloudBoxId = "cb-f8z7yvzgwfkl9q0h****";
        // Specify the full path of the object. The full path cannot contain the bucket name.
        String objectName = "exampleobject.txt";

        // Create an OSSClient instance.
        // When the OSSClient instance is no longer in use, call the shutdown method to release its resources.
        ClientBuilderConfiguration conf = new ClientBuilderConfiguration();
        conf.setSignatureVersion(SignVersion.V4);
        OSS ossClient = OSSClientBuilder.create()
                .endpoint(endpoint)
                .credentialsProvider(new DefaultCredentialProvider(credentialsProvider.getCredentials()))
                .clientConfiguration(conf)
                .region(region)
                .cloudBoxId(cloudBoxId)
                .build();

        try {
            // Delete the file or folder. If you want to delete a folder, it must be empty.
            ossClient.deleteObject(bucketName, objectName);
        } catch (OSSException oe) {
            System.out.println("Caught an OSSException, which means your request made it to OSS, "
                    + "but was rejected with an error response for some reason.");
            System.out.println("Error Message:" + oe.getErrorMessage());
            System.out.println("Error Code:" + oe.getErrorCode());
            System.out.println("Request ID:" + oe.getRequestId());
            System.out.println("Host ID:" + oe.getHostId());
        } catch (ClientException ce) {
            System.out.println("Caught an ClientException, which means the client encountered "
                    + "a serious internal problem while trying to communicate with OSS, "
                    + "such as not being able to access the network.");
            System.out.println("Error Message:" + ce.getMessage());
        } finally {
            if (ossClient != null) {
                ossClient.shutdown();
            }
        }
    }
}

Use the ossutil command line interface

For more information about how to delete a single object using ossutil, see Delete objects.

Use the REST API

If your program has high customization requirements, you can directly call REST API operations. This requires you to manually write code to sign the requests.

For more information about the API operation for deleting a single object, see DeleteObject.

Delete multiple objects

Use the Java SDK

You can use the Java SDK to delete multiple objects. The Java SDK must be version 3.15.0 or later.

import com.aliyun.oss.ClientException;
import com.aliyun.oss.OSS;
import com.aliyun.oss.OSSClientBuilder;
import com.aliyun.oss.OSSException;
import com.aliyun.oss.model.DeleteObjectsRequest;
import com.aliyun.oss.model.DeleteObjectsResult;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.net.URLDecoder;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import com.aliyun.oss.common.auth.DefaultCredentialProvider;
import com.aliyun.oss.common.auth.CredentialsProviderFactory;
import com.aliyun.oss.common.auth.EnvironmentVariableCredentialsProvider;
import com.aliyun.oss.common.comm.SignVersion;
import com.aliyun.oss.ClientBuilderConfiguration;


public class Demo {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // Specify the Endpoint for the region where the CloudBox is located.
        String endpoint = "https://cb-f8z7yvzgwfkl9q0h****.cn-hangzhou.oss-cloudbox.aliyuncs.com";
        // Obtain access credentials from environment variables. Before you run this code, make sure that the OSS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and OSS_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET environment variables are set.
        EnvironmentVariableCredentialsProvider credentialsProvider = CredentialsProviderFactory.newEnvironmentVariableCredentialsProvider();
        // Specify the name of the OSS on CloudBox bucket, for example, examplebucket.
        String bucketName = "examplebucket";
        // Specify the region where the OSS on CloudBox bucket is located.
        String region = "cn-hangzhou";
        // Specify the CloudBox ID.
        String cloudBoxId = "cb-f8z7yvzgwfkl9q0h****";

        // Create an OSSClient instance.
        // When the OSSClient instance is no longer in use, call the shutdown method to release its resources.
        ClientBuilderConfiguration conf = new ClientBuilderConfiguration();
        conf.setSignatureVersion(SignVersion.V4);
        OSS ossClient = OSSClientBuilder.create()
                .endpoint(endpoint)
                .credentialsProvider(new DefaultCredentialProvider(credentialsProvider.getCredentials()))
                .clientConfiguration(conf)
                .region(region)
                .cloudBoxId(cloudBoxId)
                .build();

        try {
            // Delete multiple objects.
            // Specify the full paths of the objects to delete. The full paths cannot contain the bucket name.
            List<String> keys = new ArrayList<String>();
            keys.add("exampleobjecta.txt");
            keys.add("testfolder/sampleobject.txt");
            keys.add("exampleobjectb.txt");

            DeleteObjectsResult deleteObjectsResult = ossClient.deleteObjects(new DeleteObjectsRequest(bucketName).withKeys(keys).withEncodingType("url"));
            List<String> deletedObjects = deleteObjectsResult.getDeletedObjects();
            try {
                for(String obj : deletedObjects) {
                    String deleteObj =  URLDecoder.decode(obj, "UTF-8");
                    System.out.println(deleteObj);
                }
            } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        } catch (OSSException oe) {
            System.out.println("Caught an OSSException, which means your request made it to OSS, "
                    + "but was rejected with an error response for some reason.");
            System.out.println("Error Message:" + oe.getErrorMessage());
            System.out.println("Error Code:" + oe.getErrorCode());
            System.out.println("Request ID:" + oe.getRequestId());
            System.out.println("Host ID:" + oe.getHostId());
        } catch (ClientException ce) {
            System.out.println("Caught an ClientException, which means the client encountered "
                    + "a serious internal problem while trying to communicate with OSS, "
                    + "such as not being able to access the network.");
            System.out.println("Error Message:" + ce.getMessage());
        } finally {
            if (ossClient != null) {
                ossClient.shutdown();
            }
        }
    }
}

Use the ossutil command line interface

For more information about how to delete multiple objects using ossutil, see delete-object.

Use the REST API

If your program has high customization requirements, you can directly call REST API operations. This requires you to manually write code to sign the requests.

For more information about the API operation for deleting multiple objects, see DeleteMultipleObjects.