After MinIO's Web Console Disappeared, It's Time for the CLI: An Introduction to mc

Translation Notice
This article was originally written in Chinese and translated into English with the assistance of AI. The translation has been reviewed and edited for clarity, accuracy, and readability. Please refer to the original source where necessary, especially for technical terms, commands, configuration details, and proper nouns.

In MinIO’s community releases after 20250524, the open-source object-storage giant radically removed the core Web management console—deleting 110,000 lines of code. The community has widely criticized MINIO for abandoning the open-source ecosystem after benefiting from it. I happened to be using MinIO for a private project, so when the new version arrived without a Web UI, I learned some basic commands with the help of AI and documentation. They are enough to keep permissions and daily usage manageable, so I decided to turn the experience into an article.

A Developer’s Rant#

What Is mc?#

Don’t get the wrong idea: this mc is not Minecraft, the game where you mine. It is short for MinIO Client, an extremely powerful official command-line tool and the primary way to interact with a MinIO server. It is easy to install in several ways.

Installation#

Download the binary directly (recommended; simple and direct)

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# Download mc for Linux amd64
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wget https://dl.min.io/client/mc/release/linux-amd64/mc
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# Grant execute permission
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chmod +x mc
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# Move it to a directory on PATH (such as /usr/local/bin/) for global use
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sudo mv mc /usr/local/bin/

Install with Docker

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# Pull the Docker image for mc
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docker pull minio/mc
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# Run a temporary container to execute a command (for example, list the myminio test bucket)
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docker run minio/mc ls myminio

Command Guide#

To see every mc command, scroll to the bottom and visit the documentation at minio.org.cn. This section lists only some common and important commands.

Run mc --help to see all commands. The core categories include:

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  alias      Manage server aliases (connection information)
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  admin      Manage the MinIO server (users, policies, configuration, etc.)
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  ...        ... (see the official documentation or the common-command details below)
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  ls         List buckets and objects
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  mb         Create a bucket
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  cp         Copy an object
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  mv         Move or rename an object
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  rm         Delete an object
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  cat        Display object contents
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  head       Display the beginning of an object
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  pipe       Stream standard input to an object
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  put        Upload a local file to a bucket
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  mirror     Sync a local directory with a remote bucket, or vice versa
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  du         Report disk usage
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  diff       Compare two buckets
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  find       Search for objects
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  ...        ... (other important commands include policy, user, config, event, and ilm)

Common Commands#

Aliases#

Manage connections (alias)

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mc alias set ALIAS HOST ACCESSKEY SECRETKEY
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# Example: connect to local MinIO
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mc alias set myminio http://localhost:9000 minioadmin minioadmin

List all aliases in the local mc configuration

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mc alias list
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# Example: list all aliases
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mc alist list

Delete an existing alias from the local mc configuration

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mc alias remove ALIAS
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# Example: delete the myminio alias
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mc alias rm myminio

Administration#

View server information

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mc admin info ALIAS
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# Example: view the status of the myminio server
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mc admin info myminio

User management

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# Add a user
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mc admin user add ALIAS ACCESSKEY SECRETKEY
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# Example: add user AK:test SK:123456 to myminio
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mc admin user add myminio test 123456
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# Disable a user
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mc admin user disable ALIAS USERNAME
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# Example: disable user test on myminio
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mc admin user disable myminio test
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# Enable a user
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mc admin user enable ALIAS USERNAME
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# Example: enable user test on myminio
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mc admin user enable myminio test
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# View user information
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mc admin user info ALIAS USERNAME
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# Example: view information for user test on myminio
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mc admin user info myminio test
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# List all users
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mc admin user ls ALIAS
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# Example: list all users on myminio
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mc admin user ls myminio
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# Delete a user
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mc admin user rm ALIAS USERNAME
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# Example: delete user test from myminio
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mc admin user rm myminio test

PBAC policy management

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# Create a policy
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mc admin policy create ALIAS POLICYNAME POLICYPATH
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# Example: create the listmybuckets policy on myminio using /tmp/listmybuckets.json as its policy document
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mc admin policy create myminio listmybuckets /tmp/listmybuckets.json
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# Attach one or more IAM policies to a MinIO object
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mc admin policy attach ALIAS POLICY [POLICY...] [--user USER | --group GROUP]
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# Example: attach the listmybuckets policy to user test on myminio
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mc admin policy attach myminio listmybuckets test
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# List all policies
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mc admin policy ls ALIAS
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# Example: list all policies on myminio
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mc admin policy ls myminio
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# Display a policy document
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mc admin policy info ALIAS POLICYNAME [--policy-file, -f <path>]
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# Example: display the writeonly policy on myminio
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mc admin policy info myminio writeonly
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# List entities associated with policies, users, or groups on the target MinIO deployment
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mc admin policy entities ALIAS [--user value] [--group value] [--policy value]
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# Example: list entities associated with policies on myminio
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mc admin policy entities myminio/
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# Delete a policy
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mc admin policy rm ALIAS POLICYNAME
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# Example: delete the writeonly policy from myminio
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mc admin policy rm myminio writeonly

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