TLDR

This post explains how to delete all files in a Cloudflare R2 bucket using rclone instead of the web UI or AWS CLI.

Quick steps:

  1. Get credentials: Create an Account API Token in R2 dashboard with "Object Read & Write" permission
  2. Configure rclone: Add R2 credentials to ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf with type=s3, provider=Cloudflare
  3. Delete files: Run rclone delete r2:/bucket-name/ -P

Object storage services do not allow deleting a bucket without deleting all the files in it first. R2's web UI doesn't allow a "Select All" button that would make deleting just 2 clicks away. If you have tons and tons of file, don't even think about using the web UI to clean up the bucket.

Clouflare suggests using the aws cli, however I prefer using rclone - https://rclone.org/ simply because I can use one tool with one interface and connect to all sort of cloud service and not just object storage services like minio, s3, backblaze b2, ... For example: I have upload photos to Google photos using rclone, downloaded files from Google drive, ...

rclone has a massive list of services that it supports. See here - https://rclone.org/#providers. Install rclone (guide: https://rclone.org/install/) and let's begin by creating an access key for your bucket.

Get the Access key

  • On the web UI, go to R2's dashboard and on the top right you should see "Manage API tokens" button.
  • Create an Account API Token (not the User API Token). You need to select "Object Read & Write" permission with the correct bucket.
  • On the next page, you should see the Access Key ID and the Secret Access Key. Keep note of them and also the endpoint - we'll need them in a while.

cloudflare r2 access keys

Setup rclone

You can either use the setup wizard using the rclone config command or just use this template and place it in ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf.

[r2]
type = s3
provider = Cloudflare
access_key_id = 6b82af45b9a94e281cd5ba7b111b68fe
secret_access_key = 61f58485d481ad5980635c388e5740f9a8abf94ab5b5acc442c1effb08a081b6
endpoint = https://5bdd9766a7ad14ae145db477f519gs21.r2.cloudflarestorage.com

Verify that the config was created properly.

rclone listremotes --long
r2:                  s3

Deleting bucket

My bucket is named longhorn so this is the comand I ran. The -P flag shows the progress.

rclone delete r2:/longhorn/ -P
Transferred:              0 B / 0 B, -, 0 B/s, ETA -
Checks:                29 / 37, 78%, Listed 100
Deleted:               37 (files), 0 (dirs), 41.254 MiB (freed)
Elapsed time:         1.5s
Checking:
 * backups/backupstore/vo…c759acc982e2aff860.blk: deleting
 * backups/backupstore/vo…f23cab54f4acad0772.blk: deleting
 * backups/backupstore/vo…f27e50d08a22c62ab5.blk: deleting
 * backups/backupstore/vo…e80924cddebd00517b.blk: deleting
 * backups/backupstore/vo…92910deb42c89ff38f.blk: deleting
 * backups/backupstore/vo…6262258659adcdee58.blk: deleting
 * backups/backupstore/vo…f3ebd0010bfda1e995.blk: deleting
 * backups/backupstore/vo…606dd94efb994185b1.blk: deleting