API Permissions Reference - Amazon Glacier
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This page is only for existing customers of the Amazon Glacier service using Vaults and the original REST API from 2012.

If you're looking for archival storage solutions, we recommend using the Amazon Glacier storage classes in Amazon S3, S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive. To learn more about these storage options, see Amazon Glacier storage classes.

Amazon Glacier (original standalone vault-based service) will no longer accept new customers starting December 15, 2025, with no impact to existing customers. Amazon Glacier is a standalone service with its own APIs that stores data in vaults and is distinct from Amazon S3 and the Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes. Your existing data will remain secure and accessible in Amazon Glacier indefinitely. No migration is required. For low-cost, long-term archival storage, Amazon recommends the Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes, which deliver a superior customer experience with S3 bucket-based APIs, full Amazon Web Services Region availability, lower costs, and Amazon service integration. If you want enhanced capabilities, consider migrating to Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes by using our Amazon Solutions Guidance for transferring data from Amazon Glacier vaults to Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes.

API Permissions Reference

When you are setting up How Amazon Glacier works with IAM and writing a permissions policy that you can attach to an IAM identity (identity-based policies) or a resource (resource-based policies), you can use the following table as a reference. The table lists each Amazon Glacier API operation, the corresponding actions for which you can grant permissions to perform the action, and the Amazon resource for which you can grant the permissions.

You specify the actions in the policy's Action element, and you specify the resource value in the policy's Resource element. Also, you can use the IAM policy language Condition element to specify when a policy should take effect.

To specify an action, use the glacier: prefix followed by the API operation name (for example, glacier:CreateVault). For most Amazon Glacier actions, Resource is the vault on which you want to grant the permissions. You specify a vault as the Resource value by using the vault ARN. To express conditions, you use predefined condition keys. For more information, see Resource-based policies within Amazon Glacier.

The following table lists actions that can be used with identity-based policies and resource-based policies.

Note

Some actions can only be used with identity-based policies. These actions are marked by an asterisk (*) after the name of the API operation in the first column.

If you see an expand arrow (↗) in the upper-right corner of the table, you can open the table in a new window. To close the window, choose the close button (X) in the lower-right corner.