Using the pagination options in the Amazon CLI - Amazon Command Line Interface
Server-side pagination
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Using the pagination options in the Amazon CLI

This topic describes the different ways to paginate output from the Amazon CLI.

Server-side pagination

For commands that can return a large list of items, the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI) has multiple options to control the number of items included in the output when the Amazon CLI calls a service's API to populate the list.

The options include the following:

By default, the Amazon CLI uses a page size determined by the individual service and retrieves all available items. For example, Amazon S3 has a default page size of 1000. If you run aws s3api list-objects on an Amazon S3 bucket that contains 3,500 objects, the Amazon CLI automatically makes four calls to Amazon S3, handling the service-specific pagination logic for you in the background and returning all 3,500 objects in the final output.

How to use the --no-paginate parameter

The --no-paginate option disables following pagination tokens on the client side. When using a command, by default the Amazon CLI automatically makes multiple calls to return all possible results to create pagination. One call for each page. Disabling pagination has the Amazon CLI only call once for the first page of command results.

For example, if you run aws s3api list-objects on an Amazon S3 bucket that contains 3,500 objects, the Amazon CLI only makes the first call to Amazon S3, returning only the first 1,000 objects in the final output.

$ aws s3api list-objects \
    --bucket amzn-s3-demo-bucket \
    --no-paginate
{
    "Contents": [
...

How to use the --page-size parameter

If you see issues when running list commands on a large number of resources, the default page size might be too high. This can cause calls to Amazon services to exceed the maximum allowed time and generate a "timed out" error. You can use the --page-size option to specify that the Amazon CLI request a smaller number of items from each call to the Amazon service. The Amazon CLI still retrieves the full list, but performs a larger number of service API calls in the background and retrieves a smaller number of items with each call. This gives the individual calls a better chance of succeeding without a timeout. Changing the page size doesn't affect the output; it affects only the number of API calls that need to be made to generate the output.

$ aws s3api list-objects \
    --bucket amzn-s3-demo-bucket \
    --page-size 100
{
    "Contents": [
...

How to use the --max-items parameter

To include fewer items at a time in the Amazon CLI output, use the --max-items option. The Amazon CLI still handles pagination with the service as described previously, but prints out only the number of items at a time that you specify.

$ aws s3api list-objects \
    --bucket amzn-s3-demo-bucket \
    --max-items 100
{
    "NextToken": "eyJNYXJrZXIiOiBudWxsLCAiYm90b190cnVuY2F0ZV9hbW91bnQiOiAxfQ==",
    "Contents": [
...

How to use the --starting-token parameter

If the number of items output (--max-items) is fewer than the total number of items returned by the underlying API calls, the output includes a NextToken that you can pass to a subsequent command to retrieve the next set of items. The following example shows how to use the NextToken value returned by the previous example, and enables you to retrieve the second 100 items.

Note

The parameter --starting-token cannot be null or empty. If the previous command does not return a NextToken value, there are no more items to return and you do not need to call the command again.

$ aws s3api list-objects \
    --bucket amzn-s3-demo-bucket \
    --max-items 100 \
    --starting-token eyJNYXJrZXIiOiBudWxsLCAiYm90b190cnVuY2F0ZV9hbW91bnQiOiAxfQ==
{
    "Contents": [
...

The specified Amazon service might not return items in the same order each time you call. If you specify different values for --page-size and --max-items, you can get unexpected results with missing or duplicated items. To prevent this, use the same number for --page-size and --max-items to sync the Amazon CLI pagination with the pagination of the underlying service. You can also retrieve the whole list and perform any necessary paging operations locally.