Restoring recently deleted version of all files contained in a single folder in an S3 bucket

Help and Support
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

When I run the command nothing is happening and I need to restore files (versions) that were recently deleted in mass from a particular folder and a s3 bucket and restore them to the same location

Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.

rclone v1.71.2
- os/version: redhat 8.10 (64 bit)
- os/kernel: 4.18.0-553.56.1.el8_10.x86_64 (x86_64)
- os/type: linux
- os/arch: amd64
- go/version: go1.25.3
- go/linking: static
- go/tags: none

s3 compatible storage


#### The command you were trying to run (eg `rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp`)

<!--  You should use 3 backticks to begin and end your paste to make it readable.   -->

```
clone copy \
remotea,version_at=\"2025-12-05\":bucket/folder remotea:bucket/folder \
  --checkers=400 --transfers=100 \
  --progress \
  --log-level DEBUG \
  --log-file=logfile.log \
  --dry-run \
```

#### Please run 'rclone config redacted' and share the full output. If you get command not found, please make sure to update rclone.

<!--  You should use 3 backticks to begin and end your paste to make it readable.   -->

```
[config name]
type = s3
provider = Other
access_key_id = XXX
secret_access_key = XXX
endpoint = URL removed

```

#### A log from the command that you were trying to run with the `-vv` flag

```There is no output from the log. The command just hangs.```

<!-- You should use 3 backticks to begin and end your paste to make it readable.  Or use a service such as https://pastebin.com or https://gist.github.com/
2

I changed the command to:

rclone copy \
remotea,version_at=2025-12-05:bucket/folder remotea:bucket/folder \
  --checkers=400 --transfers=100 \
  --progress \
  --log-level DEBUG \
  --log-file=bjctest.log \
  --dry-run \

and then is was able to get the following in the log:

2025/12/09 19:33:02 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.71.2" starting with parameters ["rclone" "copy" "remotea,version_at=2025-12-05:bucket/folder remotea:bucket/folder" "--checkers=400" "--transfers=100" "--progress" "--log-level" "DEBUG" "--log-file=bjctest.log" "--dry-run"]
2025/12/09 19:33:02 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "remotea,version_at=2025-12-05:bucket/folder"
2025/12/09 19:33:02 DEBUG : Using config file from ".config/rclone/rclone.conf"
2025/12/09 19:33:02 DEBUG : remotea: detected overridden config - adding "{srbBr}" suffix to name


However it just hangs up there.
3

Hi @kg958 , welcome to the forum!

I think it is a syntax thing - rclone is seeing a single argument "remotea,version_at=2025-12-05:bucket/folder remotea:bucket/folder" as you can see below.

Not sure why exactly, but that is the problem. You could try separating your remotes on different lines as currently the space in between the two remotes is not being recognized.

4

It actually ended up running but took a long time due to the number of files. However it didn’t pull up any of the versions when I ran it this way. I changed the date to 2025-12-02 and it did which was odd. Perhaps I don’t understand the proper way to look at the date/time of the versions I am trying to recover.

5

You could try listing whats there with the --s3-versions flag, hopefully that will enlighten you to what is available.