S3PO : Online Music Player & Playlist Maker

S3PO is a simple online music player that lets you browse, play, and organize music stored in an Amazon S3 bucket. Instead of uploading your music to another service, S3PO uses your existing cloud storage as the library and provides a clean HTML5 interface for listening in the browser.

Users can browse available MP3 files, select tracks, play them instantly, and build custom playlists from their S3 collection. Playlists can be reordered, renamed, and played sequentially, with familiar controls for play/pause, previous/next, seeking, shuffle, and repeat.

Core features include:

The concept is similar to other S3-backed music players, but the key appeal of S3PO is simplicity: point it at an S3 bucket and turn that collection into a personal web-based jukebox. Amazon S3 itself stores files as objects inside buckets, making it a natural backend for this kind of application.

S3PO Setup Guide

Using Amazon S3 as Your Personal Music Library

S3PO is an online music player that can play music stored in an Amazon S3 bucket. To use it, you need an AWS account, an S3 bucket containing your music, and credentials that allow S3PO to access that bucket.

You do not need to understand AWS programming to get started. This guide walks through the process step by step.

Important: AWS credentials can provide access to your cloud storage. Treat your Secret Access Key like a password. Never post it online, send it to someone else, or include it in a screenshot.

What You'll Need

Before starting, you will need:

  1. An Amazon Web Services (AWS) account

  2. An S3 bucket

  3. Some MP3 files to put into the bucket

  4. An S3-compatible desktop file manager/client

  5. An AWS access key and secret access key

  6. Your S3 bucket's AWS Region

Amazon describes an S3 bucket as a container for objects, with each uploaded file being an object. (AWS Documentation)

1. Create an AWS Account

If you don't already have an AWS account, go to the official AWS website and create one.

AWS Management Console

Follow Amazon's account creation process.

You'll need to provide the information AWS requests during registration. AWS may require a payment method even if you intend to use only a small amount of storage.

Tip: S3 is a paid cloud-storage service. You pay for things such as storage and data transfer rather than simply for creating a bucket. (AWS Documentation)

2. Open Amazon S3

Once you've logged into AWS:

  1. Open the AWS Management Console.

  2. Search for S3.

  3. Select Amazon S3.

  4. Choose General purpose buckets.

  5. Click Create bucket.

You can also go directly to:

Amazon S3 Console

3. Create Your Music Bucket

Give your bucket a name.

For example:

my-music-library

However, S3 bucket names have to be unique, so that exact name may already be taken. You might instead use something like:

johns-music-library-2026

Bucket names must follow Amazon's naming rules, including being between 3 and 63 characters and using permitted lowercase characters, numbers, periods, and hyphens. (AWS Documentation)

Choose a Region

AWS will ask you to select a Region.

For example:

US East (N. Virginia)
us-east-1

Or you might choose another Region closer to you.

Write down the Region you select.

For example:

Bucket: johns-music-library-2026
Region: us-east-1

The bucket's Region cannot be changed after the bucket is created; moving it later generally means creating another bucket and moving the files. (AWS Documentation)

4. Keep the Bucket Private

For a personal music collection, the safest starting point is to keep the bucket private.

When creating the bucket, leave Block Public Access enabled.

Amazon recommends keeping S3 Block Public Access enabled for most modern S3 use cases. (AWS Documentation)

You do not need to make your music publicly accessible just to use it with an application that authenticates to S3.

Your S3 bucket should look conceptually like this:

My AWS Account
     │
     └── S3
          │
          └── my-music-library
                │
                ├── song1.mp3
                ├── song2.mp3
                ├── song3.mp3
                └── Albums/
                     ├── album-song1.mp3
                     └── album-song2.mp3

5. Upload Your Music

After creating the bucket:

  1. Open the bucket.

  2. Click Upload.

  3. Add your MP3 files.

  4. Click Upload.

You can also create folders to organize your collection.

For example:

Music/
    Beatles/
        Abbey Road/
            01 Come Together.mp3
            02 Something.mp3

    Pink Floyd/
        Meddle/
            01 One Of These Days.mp3
            02 A Pillow Of Winds.mp3

S3 doesn't really use traditional folders internally; what appears as a folder structure is based on object keys. For everyday use, however, you can treat them just like folders.

6. Installing a Desktop S3 Client

Although AWS provides a web interface, a desktop S3 client can make managing a large music collection much easier.

A desktop S3 client lets you connect to your bucket and use an interface similar to Windows File Explorer.

You can then:

Popular S3-compatible desktop applications include tools such as Cyberduck, WinSCP and other S3 clients.

The exact screens differ between applications, but they generally ask for the same basic information:

Access Key ID
Secret Access Key
Region
Bucket

7. Create an AWS IAM User

For S3PO, you need credentials that can access your S3 music library.

AWS currently recommends newer authentication approaches such as IAM Identity Center/federated authentication where appropriate, rather than relying on long-lived IAM user credentials. However, many desktop S3 clients and applications still support access-key authentication, so this guide describes that method. (AWS Documentation)

In AWS:

  1. Open IAM.

  2. Select Users.

  3. Choose Create user.

  4. Give the user a name.

For example:

s3po-user

This user will be used for programmatic access to your music bucket.

8. Give the User S3 Permissions

AWS permissions determine what the user can do.

For a quick setup, AWS documents the use of the AmazonS3FullAccess managed policy for users that need full S3 access. (AWS Documentation)

However, full S3 access is more permission than S3PO normally needs.

For a production setup, a better approach is to create a restricted policy allowing access only to the particular music bucket and only to the operations S3PO actually needs.

For example, a read-only music player might need permission to:

List the bucket
Read objects

A desktop uploader would additionally need permissions such as:

Upload objects
Delete objects
Create/manage objects

This is known as the principle of least privilege: give an application only the permissions it actually needs.

9. Create an Access Key

Once your IAM user exists:

  1. Open the IAM user.

  2. Select Security credentials.

  3. Find Access keys.

  4. Select Create access key.

  5. Choose the appropriate use case, such as Command Line Interface (CLI) when presented.

  6. Continue through the prompts.

  7. Download or securely save the credentials.

AWS provides two important values:

Access Key ID
Secret Access Key

The Secret Access Key is particularly important.

AWS only gives you the secret key when the access key is created. Save it securely. AWS's documentation specifically describes downloading the CSV containing the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key during this process. (AWS Documentation)

10. Do NOT Share Your Secret Key

Your credentials should look something like this:

Access Key ID:
AKIA................................

and:

Secret Access Key:
........................................

The examples above are intentionally incomplete.

Never put your real credentials into:

If somebody obtains credentials with sufficient permissions, they may be able to access or modify your AWS resources.

11. Connect Your Desktop S3 Client

Open your preferred S3 desktop application and create a new connection.

Choose:

Amazon S3

or:

S3-compatible storage

depending on the program.

It will generally ask for:

Access Key ID

YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_ID

Secret Access Key

YOUR_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

Region

us-east-1

Use the Region you selected when creating your bucket.

Then connect.

If everything is correct, you should see your S3 buckets.

Open your music bucket and you should see your uploaded files.

12. Test Your S3 Connection

Before configuring S3PO, make sure your desktop client can:

  1. Connect to AWS.

  2. See your bucket.

  3. Open the bucket.

  4. See your MP3 files.

  5. Upload a test MP3.

  6. Download the test MP3.

If those things work, your AWS setup is probably correct.

13. Configure S3PO

Now you can provide S3PO with the information it needs.

Depending on how S3PO is configured, this may look something like:

AWS Access Key ID:     your-access-key
AWS Secret Access Key: your-secret-key
AWS Region:            us-east-1
S3 Bucket:             my-music-library-2026

S3PO can then use the AWS credentials to access the music stored in the bucket.

14. Organizing Your Music

There is no single required organization scheme.

A simple collection might look like:

Music/
    Artist 1/
        Album 1/
            01 Track.mp3
            02 Track.mp3

    Artist 2/
        Album 1/
            01 Track.mp3
            02 Track.mp3

Or you could simply put everything in one directory:

Music/
    song1.mp3
    song2.mp3
    song3.mp3
    song4.mp3

S3PO can potentially use the S3 object names as the basis for browsing and playlist creation.

15. Creating Playlists in S3PO

Once S3PO can see your music:

  1. Browse your S3 music library.

  2. Select a song.

  3. Add it to a playlist.

  4. Continue adding songs.

  5. Reorder the tracks as desired.

  6. Give the playlist a name.

  7. Press Play.

For example:

PLAYLIST: Sunday Morning

01 - Artist A - Song One
02 - Artist B - Song Two
03 - Artist C - Song Three
04 - Artist A - Song Four

The playlist can contain songs from different folders and artists.

Troubleshooting

"Access Denied"

Usually this means the AWS credentials don't have the necessary S3 permissions.

Check:

AWS S3 resources are private by default, so an authenticated user still needs appropriate permissions. (AWS Documentation)

"Bucket not found"

Check that you entered the exact bucket name.

Remember that S3 bucket names are globally constrained within their AWS partition, and the bucket's Region matters. (AWS Documentation)

"Wrong Region"

Make sure the Region in your S3 client or S3PO matches the Region where the bucket was created.

Desktop client works but S3PO doesn't

If your desktop client can access the bucket but S3PO cannot, check:

Security Checklist

Before using S3PO with your real music collection:

☐ Keep your S3 bucket private
☐ Don't publish your Secret Access Key
☐ Don't commit credentials to GitHub
☐ Use an IAM identity rather than your AWS root credentials
☐ Give S3PO only the permissions it needs
☐ Keep your AWS Region recorded
☐ Test the connection with a small number of files first
☐ Delete/revoke credentials that you no longer use

AWS itself cautions against relying on long-lived IAM user credentials for new purpose-built applications and recommends stronger authentication approaches where appropriate. (AWS Documentation)

Quick Start

For someone who just wants the short version:

1. Create an AWS account.
2. Open S3.
3. Create a private bucket.
4. Choose and record the bucket's Region.
5. Upload your MP3 files.
6. Create an IAM user for S3 access.
7. Give that user the required S3 permissions.
8. Create an Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.
9. Enter those credentials into your desktop S3 client.
10. Confirm that you can see and manage your music.
11. Enter the appropriate S3 information into S3PO.
12. Browse your music and start making playlists.

For official AWS instructions, see AWS: Getting Started with Amazon S3 and AWS: IAM User Credentials and Access Keys. 

S3PO S3/MP3 Player [ONLINE]

Connect to an S3 bucket, find MP3 files, and play them directly in the browser.


Playlist 0 MP3 file(s)

No MP3 files are loaded yet.

The AWS credentials are held only in this server process and are not embedded in the HTML. Playlist URLs are temporary S3 presigned URLs and expire after 30 minutes.