Amazon Macie
Amazon Macie is a cloud service that discovers sensitive information in Amazon S3 and highlights data security risks.
What Amazon Macie is
Amazon Macie is a cloud service that discovers sensitive information in Amazon S3 and highlights data security risks. It continually checks S3 buckets for security and access controls, producing findings for issues such as publicly accessible buckets. You can use automated discovery or create targeted jobs that run once or on a recurring schedule. Macie includes managed sensitive-data types and supports custom identifiers defined with regular expressions, for structured and unstructured data in supported formats.
Findings appear in the browser-based AWS Management Console and can be sent to Amazon EventBridge or AWS Security Hub CSPM. Command line tools, SDKs, and a REST API are also available. An administrator account can manage member accounts through AWS Organizations and aggregate findings. Findings are retained for 30 days; full discovery details can be written to your own S3 bucket for longer storage. Macie has a 30-day trial with up to 150 GB inspected per account, bucket inventory, and monitoring; discovery jobs are excluded. Paid usage is listed from $0.10/mo.
Good
- Monitors S3 bucket security and access controls.
- Supports recurring and one-time discovery jobs.
- Custom identifiers can use regular expressions.
- Integrates with EventBridge and Security Hub CSPM.
- No contracts or minimum commitments.
Watch out
- No free plan is listed.
- Findings are retained for 30 days.
- Trial excludes sensitive data discovery jobs.
Who it suits
Macie suits organizations that need to find sensitive data in S3 and monitor bucket security, including teams coordinating findings across AWS accounts. It may also be relevant to users running targeted discovery jobs to help meet regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR.
Verdict
Macie combines S3 monitoring with automated and targeted sensitive-data discovery, plus integrations for monitoring and remediation workflows. Check the trial’s discovery-job exclusion and the 30-day findings retention period against your needs.
Plans and prices
From Amazon Macie's own pricing page, checked 1 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| 30-day free trial | Free | Up to 150 GB inspected per account · bucket inventory and monitoring included · sensitive data discovery jobs excluded · 30 days |
| Usage-based pricing | — | $0.10 per S3 bucket/month · $0.01 per 100K objects · $1 per GB automated discovery (1 GB free tier) · $1 per GB targeted discovery · prorated daily |
The facts
Each one read from Amazon Macie's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Availability SLA
- AWS commits to a 99.9% monthly uptime percentage for Macie in each AWS Region, subject to SLA exclusions.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Commitments
- There are no contracts or minimum commitments for using Amazon Macie.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Compliance use
- AWS states that targeted sensitive data discovery jobs can help meet regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Data identifiers
- Macie provides managed sensitive data types and lets customers create custom data identifiers using regular expressions.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Discovery jobs
- Macie supports automated sensitive data discovery and targeted jobs that can run once or on a recurring basis.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Encryption
- Macie encrypts data at rest using AWS Key Management Service managed keys and encrypts data in transit between AWS services.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Findings retention
- Macie findings are retained for 30 days, while full sensitive data discovery details are written to a customer-owned S3 bucket for long-term retention.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- Macie publishes findings to Amazon EventBridge and can publish them to AWS Security Hub CSPM for monitoring and remediation workflows.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Multi-account
- A single Macie administrator account can manage member accounts through AWS Organizations integration, with findings aggregated in the administrator account.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Programmatic access
- Macie provides a browser-based AWS Management Console, AWS command line tools, AWS SDKs, and a REST API.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- Amazon Macie discovers sensitive data using machine learning and pattern matching, provides visibility into data security risks, and enables automated protection.checked 1 Oct 2026
- S3 monitoring
- Macie continually evaluates Amazon S3 buckets for security and access controls and generates findings for issues such as publicly accessible buckets.checked 1 Oct 2026
- Service quotas
- Default quotas include 10,000 monitored S3 buckets per account, 5 TB monthly analysis by discovery jobs, and 10,000 custom data identifiers per account.checked 1 Oct 2026
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