Download the Snapshot

The OpenAlex snapshot is hosted on Amazon S3 and is free to download. You don’t need an AWS account.

Info: Many thanks to the AWS Open Data program, which covers the data-transfer fees (about $70 per download) so users don’t have to.

Prerequisites

Install the AWS CLI. All commands in this guide use it. No account or credentials are needed — the --no-sign-request flag provides anonymous access.

You can also browse the snapshot in your browser: openalex.s3.amazonaws.com/browse.html

Download the full snapshot

This copies everything in the openalex S3 bucket to a local folder.

aws s3 sync "s3://openalex" "openalex-snapshot" --no-sign-request

Warning: This pulls both formats (JSON Lines under data/jsonl/ and Parquet under data/parquet/) plus the legacy-data/ prefix, so it’s about 1.5 TB (each format is ~750 GB on its own). Most users want a single format — see Download a single format or entity type below.

Warning: If you’re downloading into a folder that already has a previous snapshot, use the --delete flag to remove outdated files. Otherwise you’ll get duplicate entities that have moved between partitions.

aws s3 sync "s3://openalex" "openalex-snapshot" --no-sign-request --delete

Check the current size

The snapshot size changes over time. Check before downloading:

aws s3 ls --summarize --human-readable --no-sign-request --recursive "s3://openalex/"

File structure

After downloading, you’ll have a structure like this. The data is split into two top-level format folders — jsonl/ and parquet/ — each a complete copy of every entity:

openalex-snapshot/
├── LICENSE.txt
├── RELEASE_NOTES.txt         # what changed in each release
├── browse.html
├── legacy-data/              # pre-2026 flat layout + merged_ids (frozen, not updated)
└── data
    ├── jsonl
    │   ├── manifest.json      # all entities
    │   ├── works
    │   │   ├── manifest.json
    │   │   ├── deleted_ids.csv.gz   # works deletion log (gzip CSV)
    │   │   └── updated_date=2026-06-24
    │   │       ├── part_0000.gz
    │   │       └── part_0001.gz
    │   ├── authors
    │   │   └── ...
    │   ├── institutions
    │   ├── sources
    │   ├── publishers
    │   ├── funders
    │   ├── awards
    │   └── ...               # topics, keywords, concepts, countries, etc.
    └── parquet
        ├── manifest.json
        ├── works
        │   ├── manifest.json
        │   └── updated_date=2026-06-24
        │       ├── part_0000.parquet
        │       └── part_0001.parquet
        └── ...

See Snapshot data format for the full entity list, the partition structure, and how to keep your copy up to date.

Download a single format or entity type

If you only need one format, sync its prefix:

# JSON Lines only
aws s3 sync "s3://openalex/data/jsonl" "openalex-snapshot/data/jsonl" --no-sign-request

# Parquet only
aws s3 sync "s3://openalex/data/parquet" "openalex-snapshot/data/parquet" --no-sign-request

To narrow further to a single entity type, add it to the prefix:

aws s3 sync "s3://openalex/data/jsonl/works" "openalex-snapshot/data/jsonl/works" --no-sign-request

Alternatives to local download

If you don’t want to download files locally, some services can read directly from S3:

• Amazon Redshift: Load from S3 using the manifest files
• ETL tools with S3 connectors (Xplenty, Airbyte, etc.)

For these approaches, the snapshot data format documentation should have enough detail to get started.

Download the daily snapshot (Member+ and Partner plans)

Member+ and Partner plans include a daily-refreshed snapshot. Each day’s full snapshot is published to dated folders in the openalex-snapshots staging bucket, in both JSON Lines and Parquet.

1. Add this to ~/.aws/config (replace YOUR_KEY with your OpenAlex API key):

[profile openalex]
credential_process = curl -sf -X POST "https://api.openalex.org/snapshots/credentials?api_key=YOUR_KEY"

The AWS CLI will fetch and refresh credentials automatically.

2. Browse and download

aws s3 ls s3://openalex-snapshots/full/ --profile openalex

# pick a dated folder from the listing above
aws s3 sync s3://openalex-snapshots/full/YYYY-MM-DD/jsonl/ ./openalex-snapshot-jsonl --profile openalex

aws s3 sync s3://openalex-snapshots/full/YYYY-MM-DD/parquet/ ./openalex-snapshot-parquet --profile openalex

Each dated folder under full/ is a complete snapshot built that day, so you can pull a fresh full copy daily rather than waiting for the quarterly public release. Both formats are included; Parquet was also added to the free quarterly public snapshot in June 2026. See Sync for the workflows the daily snapshot enables, and Pricing for the plans that include it.