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How to Use Cloudflare R2 for Object Storage

Cloudflare R2 stores objects in buckets and can be accessed through Workers, its S3-compatible API, command-line tools, or the Dashboard. Learn the setup, access controls, pricing model, and limits.
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Cloudflare R2 stores files as objects inside buckets. You can manage them in the Cloudflare Dashboard, access them from Cloudflare Workers, or use the S3-compatible API with an SDK or command-line tool. For an existing S3 workflow, the essentials are an R2 API token, your account-specific endpoint, and the region value auto. Buckets are private by default; use a custom domain when serving public content in production.

How R2 object storage is organized

R2 is hosted object storage for unstructured data. Each object has a key and belongs to a bucket. A key such as images/photo.png may look like a path, but the slash creates a prefix-like grouping, not a real directory. Cloudflare describes R2 as strongly consistent: after a successful write response, the object is visible.

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Cloudflare’s documented write flow routes and authenticates a request, encrypts and writes the object data within the bucket’s configured location, then commits metadata before returning HTTP 200. Cloudflare characterizes R2 as “an S3-compatible object storage service with no egress fees, built on Cloudflare’s global network.” Cloudflare’s R2 documentation

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Choose how your application will access R2

Access method Best suited to
Workers API Application code running on Cloudflare Workers that reads or writes objects.
S3-compatible API Existing applications, SDKs, or tools that use S3-style object operations.
Wrangler Cloudflare-managed bucket and object tasks from the command line.
rclone Bulk object operations and transfers.
AWS CLI Familiar command-line workflows that use S3-compatible operations.
Dashboard Quick browser-based bucket and object management.

The S3-compatible endpoint is https://<ACCOUNT_ID>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com. Configure the region as auto; this value is used in common SDK configurations and is not a geographic R2 region. R2 implements S3 features selectively, so check Cloudflare’s S3 API compatibility documentation for the specific operations your application needs.

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Set up an S3-compatible application

  1. Create a Cloudflare account with an R2 subscription, then create a bucket in the Dashboard or with Wrangler.
  2. Create an R2 API token with only the permissions and bucket scope the application needs. Save the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key securely: Cloudflare says the secret cannot be viewed again.
  3. In your S3 SDK, set the endpoint to https://<ACCOUNT_ID>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com, supply the token credentials, and set the region to auto.
  4. Use ordinary object operations, such as PutObject to upload, GetObject to download, and ListObjectsV2 to list objects. Verify that the operations and options you need are supported in R2.

For large files or bulk transfers, Cloudflare documents multipart uploads. They divide an upload into parts that can be retried individually and sent in parallel; Cloudflare recommends S3-compatible tools such as rclone for bulk object work. Cloudflare’s upload guide

Keep objects private or serve them publicly

New buckets are private by default. For private content, keep access in an authenticated application or create temporary presigned URLs for clients. A presigned URL grants time-limited access without exposing the account’s API credentials.

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For public content, Cloudflare offers a managed r2.dev subdomain as a simple testing option. Cloudflare says it is not intended for production and may be throttled. For production delivery, use a custom domain, which supports caching configuration and other Cloudflare delivery features. Cloudflare’s public bucket documentation

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Understand the costs before choosing a storage class

Cloudflare’s pricing page, last updated October 1, 2026, lists these rates and the Standard monthly free tier. These are published prices, not a workload-specific estimate. Cloudflare R2 pricing

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Charge Standard Infrequent Access
Storage $0.015 per GB-month $0.01 per GB-month
Class A operations $4.50 per million requests $9.00 per million requests
Class B operations $0.36 per million requests $0.90 per million requests
Retrieval processing Not listed as a charge $0.01 per GB
Minimum storage duration Not listed 30 days
Internet egress Free Free

The Standard monthly free tier includes 10 GB-month of storage, 1 million Class A requests, and 10 million Class B requests. It does not apply to Infrequent Access. Cloudflare rounds usage up to billing units. Your total therefore depends on stored volume, write and mutation requests (Class A), read requests (Class B), and—if using Infrequent Access—retrieval and its minimum duration. Free Internet egress does not make storage, operations, or Infrequent Access retrieval free. Use Cloudflare’s current pricing page and calculator to estimate a specific workload.

Check limits and API fit

  • Cloudflare lists unlimited data storage and object count per bucket, a maximum object size of 5 TiB, a 5 GiB single-part upload limit, and a 4.995 TiB multipart upload limit.
  • Multipart uploads support up to 10,000 parts. Cloudflare describes single-part uploads as suitable for smaller files and multipart uploads as resumable and parallelizable for larger ones.
  • The Cloudflare REST API is limited to 1,200 requests per five minutes per account. Cloudflare positions it for management and configuration rather than high-throughput object operations; use the S3-compatible API or Workers API for high-throughput object work.

These limits are listed on Cloudflare’s R2 limits page. Confirm current limits and S3 feature status before designing around a specific size, request pattern, or API behavior.

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When R2 is a good fit

Cloudflare names web assets, AI training data, user-generated content, large media, data lakes, backups, and static-site hosting as example uses. R2 is especially worth evaluating when you store unstructured data that is frequently served over the Internet and want to avoid egress charges. That does not by itself establish that R2 is cheaper or technically preferable for every application.

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Compare options using the workload’s stored volume and request mix, egress policy, read frequency and any retrieval charges, required API features, upload limits, access controls, and delivery or cache configuration. The right choice depends on how the application actually reads, writes, and serves its objects.

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