I use Amazon S3 to store backups from EC2. For a while I’ve been thinking I ought to back up some of the S3 data once in a while but I’ve been putting it off. One reason I’ve been procrastinating is because the S3 “file” management tool I’ve been using, S3 Browser, doesn’t support simple things like deleting or downloading folders. You may delete a folder (=”bucket”) only if it’s empty. You may copy the files (=”objects”) in a folder but there is no convenient way to just copy the folder and all its contents at once.

When I saw the S3Fox Firefox extension a while back I was encouraged. Unfortunately, S3Fox has some critical bugs on the Mac. In particular, folder downloads don’t work – apparently because S3Fox is using backslashes in destination paths a la Windows. You end up with empty folders on your Mac.

InterarchyI was rescued from a serious bout of the crankies by Nolobe’s Interarchy. This Mac-only file transfer application apparently supports lots of protocol standards and lots of interesting automation features blah-blah-blah but what’s important to me is – it has S3 support! Woo hoo! So I downloaded the free 14 day trial and used it to browse my S3 buckets. In a nonce I had downloaded a couple hundred megabytes of precious machine images and subversion snapshots. Now they sit on my disk, ready for their final DVD resting place. I can sleep tonight.

Oh, and Interarchy is a lickable OS X app too. I have no idea yet if I’ll prefer it to Transmit (tall order) but for S3 work from the Mac it looks like a must-have.