Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

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.

Retrieving Vault Metadata in Amazon Glacier Using the Amazon SDK for Java

Retrieve Vault Metadata for a Vault

You can retrieve metadata for a specific vault or all the vaults in a specific Amazon Region. The following are the steps to retrieve vault metadata for a specific vault using the low-level API of the Amazon SDK for Java.

The following Java code snippet illustrates the preceding steps.

DescribeVaultRequest request = new DescribeVaultRequest()
	.withVaultName("*** provide vault name***");

DescribeVaultResult result = client.describeVault(request);

System.out.print(
        "\nCreationDate: " + result.getCreationDate() +
        "\nLastInventoryDate: " + result.getLastInventoryDate() +
        "\nNumberOfArchives: " + result.getNumberOfArchives() + 
        "\nSizeInBytes: " + result.getSizeInBytes() + 
        "\nVaultARN: " + result.getVaultARN() + 
        "\nVaultName: " + result.getVaultName());

Retrieve Vault Metadata for All Vaults in a Region

You can also use the listVaults method to retrieve metadata for all the vaults in a specific Amazon Region.

The following Java code snippet retrieves list of vaults in the us-west-2 Region. The request limits the number of vaults returned in the response to 5. The code snippet then makes a series of listVaults calls to retrieve the entire vault list from the Amazon Region.

AmazonGlacierClient client;
client.setEndpoint("https://glacier.us-west-2.amazonaws.com.cn/");

String marker = null;
do {            
    ListVaultsRequest request = new ListVaultsRequest()
        .withLimit("5")
        .withMarker(marker);
    ListVaultsResult listVaultsResult = client.listVaults(request);
    
    List<DescribeVaultOutput> vaultList = listVaultsResult.getVaultList();
    marker = listVaultsResult.getMarker();
    for (DescribeVaultOutput vault : vaultList) {
        System.out.println(
                "\nCreationDate: " + vault.getCreationDate() +
                "\nLastInventoryDate: " + vault.getLastInventoryDate() +
                "\nNumberOfArchives: " + vault.getNumberOfArchives() + 
                "\nSizeInBytes: " + vault.getSizeInBytes() + 
                "\nVaultARN: " + vault.getVaultARN() + 
                "\nVaultName: " + vault.getVaultName()); 
    }
} while (marker != null);

In the preceding code segment, if you don't specify the Limit value in the request, Amazon Glacier returns up to 10 vaults, as set by the Amazon Glacier API. If there are more vaults to list, the response marker field contains the vault Amazon Resource Name (ARN) at which to continue the list with a new request; otherwise, the marker field is null.

Note that the information returned for each vault in the list is the same as the information you get by calling the describeVault method for a specific vault.

Example: Retrieving Vault Metadata Using the Amazon SDK for Java

For a working code example, see Example: Creating a Vault Using the Amazon SDK for Java. The Java code example creates a vault and retrieves the vault metadata.