---
sourceDocument: Australia ServiceNow AI Platform Administration
sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/platform-administration

 Release :

    - australia

ft:locale :

    - en-US

ft:publication_title :

    - Australia ServiceNow AI Platform Administration

ft:clusterId :

    - platadm

bundleId :

    - platadm

workflow :

    - Platform


---

# Amazon S3 external content connector

# Amazon S3 external content connector {#ariaid-title1}

Release version: Australia  
Updated October 27, 2026  
![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 1 minute to read  
The Amazon S3 external content connector makes content and metadata from your Amazon S3 buckets searchable in AI Search applications.

Connector administrators can run
or schedule content crawls to retrieve updated content and access permissions from your source system, or user
permission crawls to retrieve updated security principals from your source system. Both types of crawl feed their data to AI Search for indexing.

The indexed content and metadata are stored as records in a connector-specific indexed source. Search administrators can create search sources from this
indexed source and link them to search profiles to make the indexed records searchable in AI Search applications.

## Advanced connection settings {#amazon-s3-external-content-connector__section_srg_jsw_gkc}

You can optionally specify the following connection settings for an Amazon S3 external content connector.

* The AWS region for the connector.  
  Note:  
  For regulatory market compliance, specify a regulated market AWS region, such as <kbd class="ph userinput">us-gov-east-1</kbd> or <kbd class="ph userinput">us-gov-west-1</kbd>.
* Automatic selection or manual specification of the Amazon S3 endpoint used for connection and authentication operations. For AWS regions that offer endpoints compliant with the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), you can optionally restrict automatic selection to those endpoints.
* A list of Amazon S3 buckets that the connector can access content from. If you leave this list empty, the connector finds buckets using auto-discovery. If you populate this list, the connector only accesses content from the specified buckets.
{#amazon-s3-external-content-connector__ul_n1p_ntw_gkc}

For the full list of supported Amazon S3 endpoints and regions, see the [Amazon Simple Storage Service endpoints and quotas](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/s3.html)
Amazon documentation resource.
* **[Configure Amazon S3 for external content indexing](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/ED9R4K9Qwap~jqXAUvGgAQ)**   
  Create an Identity and Access Management (IAM) user and access key that the Amazon S3 external content connector uses to access your Amazon S3 source system.
* **[Create an Amazon S3 external content connector](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/Y2yL_3DRKj9RTJAFEpBFWA)**   
  Create an external content connector to retrieve searchable content from your Amazon S3 source system.
* **[Configure crawl settings for an Amazon S3 external content connector](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/Va3JtkniX092nQx5f~kWMw)**   
  Define inclusion and exclusion filters to specify the buckets and file types for your Amazon S3 external content connector to retrieve during content crawls.
* **[Amazon S3 external content connector permission modes](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/yTu2iF76Se4Nx0CVh5y6WQ)**   
  The Amazon S3 external content connector offers multiple permission modes to control which users can see its crawled content items in AI Search applications.
* **[Configure permission mode and user mapping settings for an Amazon S3 external content connector](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/c8XlXxDcl1GI_tc93HLtHg)**   
  Select the permission mode that controls which users can see content crawled by an Amazon S3 external content connector, and specify user mapping if needed.
* **[Amazon S3 bucket policy elements supported by the external content connector](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/VbhcPFaRxVrfuKx87LXmGA)**   
  In a standard user permission crawl, the Amazon S3 connector evaluates only the policy elements listed here. It doesn't index content items with policy statements that use other elements.
* **[AWS permissions required for Amazon S3 external content connector permission modes](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/5PqbMbmNLVMIfNS4vUq54g)**   
  The Identity and Access Management (IAM) user for an Amazon S3 external content connector requires Amazon S3 and IAM permissions that depend on the permission mode.

**Related tasks**   

* [Create a content crawl for an external content connector](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/fFJ92ZYif96fkc2JA4HtyQ "Retrieve searchable content and metadata from your source system with a content crawl. Run the crawl as a one-time task or schedule it to run on a recurring basis.")
* [Create a user permission crawl for an external content connector](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/mgt5mVce9bh_zJPIF3Xy5A "Retrieve security principals from your source system with a user permission crawl. Run the crawl as a one-time task or schedule it to run on a recurring basis.")