Permanent Public Links for S3 Images and MP4 Videos

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A download link that expires after a set period eventually stops working. If your site or app needs an address that never breaks, for example an MP4 clip or a set of product photos, open up a folder inside your S3 bucket to the public. Every object placed in that folder then gets a lasting address that anyone can fetch without a key, right up until you switch the folder back to private.

From the NABHCLOUD team · Published 27 Oct 2026 · Updated 27 Oct 2026 · Current plans and prices for this service are shown on this page, in INR, excluding GST.

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How a public folder works

You pick a single folder, or you can expose an entire bucket. Anyone who has the exact address of an object inside a public folder can pull it down. That address always follows this pattern: https://s3.nabhcloud.com/BUCKET/FOLDER/FILE, using path-style addressing.

Access given this way is download-only. Visitors can fetch or stream content, but they cannot add, edit or remove files, and they cannot browse a directory listing of the bucket or folder — so an object can only be reached by someone holding its precise address.

This feature is limited to accounts with a completed payment. Every account, regardless of payment status, still has access to links that expire after a period, for short-term sharing needs.

Make a folder public

This can be set up through the control panel or through the S3 console itself. When using the S3 console, launch it from within the control panel — a console session opened using only an access key and secret can view and copy existing public addresses, but cannot flip the public setting.

1. Open the bucket. In the control panel, go to Storage and select your bucket, or launch the S3 console from there.
2. Select the folder. Pick the option to make the folder public, or type the folder's name into the public access settings. Expose the whole bucket only if none of its contents need to stay private. The folder need not already exist.
3. Confirm the change. Read the warning shown and confirm it. Never place private files inside a folder marked public.
4. Grab the address. Select Copy public link next to any file. Characters such as spaces within a file name get encoded automatically in the generated address.

Upload MP4 videos so they play in the browser

A file only plays directly in the browser if it was uploaded with the correct Content-Type tag. Use the S3 console, or an S3-compatible client that sets Content-Type to video/mp4 for videos (image/jpeg or image/png for pictures). NABHCLOUD does not alter the Content-Type of files already stored.

Skipping ahead within a video works fine, since public addresses support range requests.

Make it private again

Select Make private on the folder whenever you like. Every existing link for it stops working at once. Note that making a parent folder public also exposes the folders nested within it, and later switching that parent back to private does not restore privacy to those nested folders automatically — so publish only the folders you actually intend to share.

A single bucket can hold at most 10 public folders. Backup buckets that the control panel manages automatically for servers or Kubernetes cannot be switched to public.

Costs and limits to know

Each time a public file gets downloaded, it counts as one GET request against your bucket, exactly like any other S3 request. See our S3 object storage pricing for the included request quota and rates.

Certain browsers refuse to open a PDF or HTML page directly from its public address. Downloading such a file, or fetching it from within your application, still works fine. Public addresses are intended for images, video and downloadable assets used by a site or app, not for browser-rendered documents.

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