Downloading a file from an s3 Bucket to the USERS computer

You should not need to save the file to the server. You can just download the file into memory, and then build a Response object containing the file.

from flask import Flask, Response
from boto3 import client

app = Flask(__name__)


def get_client():
    return client(
        's3',
        'us-east-1',
        aws_access_key_id='id',
        aws_secret_access_key='key'
    )


@app.route('/blah', methods=['GET'])
def index():
    s3 = get_client()
    file = s3.get_object(Bucket='blah-test1', Key='blah.txt')
    return Response(
        file['Body'].read(),
        mimetype='text/plain',
        headers={"Content-Disposition": "attachment;filename=test.txt"}
    )


app.run(debug=True, port=8800)

This is ok for small files, there won't be any meaningful wait time for the user. However with larger files, this well affect UX. The file will need to be completely downloaded to the server, then download to the user. So to fix this issue, use the Range keyword argument of the get_object method:

from flask import Flask, Response
from boto3 import client

app = Flask(__name__)


def get_client():
    return client(
        's3',
        'us-east-1',
        aws_access_key_id='id',
        aws_secret_access_key='key'
    )


def get_total_bytes(s3):
    result = s3.list_objects(Bucket='blah-test1')
    for item in result['Contents']:
        if item['Key'] == 'blah.txt':
            return item['Size']


def get_object(s3, total_bytes):
    if total_bytes > 1000000:
        return get_object_range(s3, total_bytes)
    return s3.get_object(Bucket='blah-test1', Key='blah.txt')['Body'].read()


def get_object_range(s3, total_bytes):
    offset = 0
    while total_bytes > 0:
        end = offset + 999999 if total_bytes > 1000000 else ""
        total_bytes -= 1000000
        byte_range = 'bytes={offset}-{end}'.format(offset=offset, end=end)
        offset = end + 1 if not isinstance(end, str) else None
        yield s3.get_object(Bucket='blah-test1', Key='blah.txt', Range=byte_range)['Body'].read()


@app.route('/blah', methods=['GET'])
def index():
    s3 = get_client()
    total_bytes = get_total_bytes(s3)

    return Response(
        get_object(s3, total_bytes),
        mimetype='text/plain',
        headers={"Content-Disposition": "attachment;filename=test.txt"}
    )


app.run(debug=True, port=8800)

This will download the file in 1MB chunks and send them to the user as they are downloaded. Both of these have been tested with a 40MB .txt file.

A better way to solve this problem is to create presigned url. This gives you a temporary URL that's valid up to a certain amount of time. It also removes your flask server as a proxy between the AWS s3 bucket which reduces download time for the user.

def get_attachment_url():
   bucket = 'BUCKET_NAME'
   key = 'FILE_KEY'

   client: boto3.s3 = boto3.client(
     's3',
     aws_access_key_id=YOUR_AWS_ACCESS_KEY,
     aws_secret_access_key=YOUR_AWS_SECRET_KEY
   )

   return client.generate_presigned_url('get_object',
                                     Params={'Bucket': bucket, 'Key': key},
                                     ExpiresIn=60) `