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By default, the media that arrives in your conversations is stored by DMLY. Custom storage sends it to a bucket you own instead, on AWS S3 or any S3-compatible provider. Use it when your privacy policy, a client contract or local data rules say customer files must stay in storage you control.

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What goes to your bucket

Once it’s on, these are saved to your bucket:
  • Photos, videos, voice notes and documents customers send you on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and Live Chat.
  • Media brought across from the WhatsApp Business app when a number connects in co-existence.
  • Files your team sends from the mobile app.
Two things to know before you switch it on:
  • It applies to new media only. Files already stored stay where they are. Nothing is moved.
  • Files in your bucket stay private. DMLY never makes them public. When someone opens one in the Inbox, DMLY creates a short-lived link for that view, so your bucket doesn’t need public access.

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Before you start

  • You need to be the workspace owner. Only the owner can open or change this page.
  • Create a bucket with your storage provider, and note its name and region.
  • Create an access key that can read, write and delete objects in that bucket. On AWS, an IAM user with a policy like this is enough (swap in your bucket name):
On another provider, create a key with read, write and delete rights on the bucket in its own dashboard.

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What to enter

Here’s what each field looks like on AWS. Use your own values, not these. On an S3-compatible provider, the bucket and keys work the same way. The region and endpoint come from your provider: These show one region each. Use the region your bucket is actually in, and the endpoint that matches it. If saving fails with a provider like these, try turning on Path-style addressing.

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Set it up

1

Open Custom storage

Go to Workspace Settings → Custom storage and turn on Use custom storage.
2

Enter the connection details

Fill in Bucket name and Region. On AWS, leave S3 endpoint URL blank.On any other provider, paste its HTTPS endpoint into S3 endpoint URL. Your provider’s dashboard lists it. If the provider asks for it, turn on Path-style addressing.
3

Enter your access key

Paste the Access key ID and Secret access key. Both are stored encrypted.
4

Save

Select Save storage settings. DMLY writes a small test file to your bucket, reads it back and deletes it before it switches anything over. If all three work, you’ll see Storage settings saved. and new media goes to your bucket from then on.
Changing the bucket, region or endpoint later doesn’t need the keys again. Leave both key fields blank to keep the saved ones.

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If saving fails

Nothing changes until the test passes, so media keeps going to the same place as before.
  • Could not verify storage. Check the endpoint, credentials, and bucket read/write/delete permissions. The test file couldn’t be written, read back or deleted. Check the bucket name and region, and that the key has all three permissions.
  • Use a publicly reachable HTTPS S3 endpoint without credentials or query parameters. The endpoint must start with https://, be reachable from the internet, and contain nothing but the address. DMLY doesn’t follow redirects, and won’t connect to a private or internal address.

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Switching back, or changing bucket

Turn off Use custom storage and save, and new media goes to DMLY storage again. Connect a different bucket, and new media goes there. Either way, DMLY keeps the old connection so it can still show the files already in that bucket.
Keep old buckets and their keys working. Files saved to a bucket stay there. If you delete the bucket or revoke its key, those files stop showing in your conversations. DMLY can’t bring them back.DMLY doesn’t fall back to its own storage. If your bucket stops accepting uploads, for example because the key was revoked, new media isn’t saved anywhere else. Check this page after any change to your storage account.