mc watch

Syntax

The mc watch command watches for events on the specified MinIO bucket or local filesystem path. For S3 services, use mc event add to configure bucket event notifications on S3-compatible services.

You can also use mc watch against a local filesystem directory to produce similar results to running the inotify -e modify,create,delete,move command.

The following command watches for events on any object or prefix in the mydata bucket on the myminio MinIO deployment:

mc watch --recursive myminio/mydata

The command has the following syntax:

mc [GLOBALFLAGS] watch                \
                 [--event "string"]   \
                 [--prefix "string"]  \
                 [--recursive]        \
                 [--suffix "string"]  \
                 ALIAS

Brackets [] indicate optional parameters.
Parameters sharing a line are mutually dependent.
Parameters separated using the pipe | operator are mutually exclusive.

Copy the example to a text editor and modify as-needed before running the command in the terminal/shell.

Parameters

`ALIAS`

mc-cmd

Required The alias of a MinIO deployment and the full path to the bucket to watch for configured events. For example:

mc watch myminio/mybucket

`--event`

mc-cmd

The event(s) to watch for. Specify multiple events using a comma , delimiter. See Supported Bucket Events for supported events.

Defaults to put,delete, get.

`--prefix`

mc-cmd

The bucket prefix in which to watch for the specified --event.

For example, given a ALIAS of play/mybucket and a --prefix of photos, only events in play/mybucket/photos trigger bucket notifications.

`--recursive, r`

mc-cmd

Recursively watch for events in the specified ALIAS bucket path or local directory.

`--suffix`

mc-cmd

The bucket suffix in which to watch for the specified --event.

For example, given a ALIAS of play/mybucket and a --suffix of .jpg, only events in play/mybucket/*.jpg trigger bucket notifications.

Global Flags

`--json`

mc-cmd

Optional

Enables JSON lines formatted output to the console.

For example:

mc --json COMMAND

Examples

Watch for Events in a Bucket

mc watch --recursive ALIAS/PATH

Replace ALIAS with the alias of the S3-compatible host.
Replace PATH with the path to the bucket.

Behavior

S3 Compatibility

The mc commandline tool is built for compatibility with the AWS S3 API and is tested with MinIO and AWS S3 for expected functionality and behavior.

MinIO provides no guarantees for other S3-compatible services, as their S3 API implementation is unknown and therefore unsupported. While mc commands may work as documented, any such usage is at your own risk.

Last modified August 2, 2026: init commit (8338d5b)