S3cmd: FAQ and Knowledge Base

You have to empty it first, sorry :-) There are two ways:

1. The convenient one is available in s3cmd 0.9.9 and newer and is as simple as s3cmd del --recursive s3://bucket-to-delete
2. The less convenient one available prior to s3cmd 0.9.9 involves creating an empty directory, say /tmp/empty and synchronizing its content (i.e. nothing) to the bucket: s3cmd sync --delete /tmp/empty s3://bucket-to-delete

Once the bucket is empty it can then be removed with s3cmd rb s3://bucket-to-delete