Updated Amazon is killing its WorkDocs document sharing and content collaboration service, notifying users that sign-ups are no longer available and giving them a year to migrate any data stored.
WorkDocs is a fully managed platform hosted on Amazon’s AWS cloud for creating, editing, and sharing content, similar to Google Workspace or Microsoft OneDrive for Business.
Anyone accessing the WorkDocs page online is now greeted with a notification stating that “new customer sign-ups and account upgrades are no longer available for Amazon WorkDocs,” and a link to instructions for migrating their data out of the service.
Users were also sent an email notifying them of the move.
“You are receiving this notification because we have decided to end support for the WorkDocs service, effective April 25, 2025. This applies to all instances, including your WorkDocs site, WorkDocs APIs, and WorkDocs Drive,” the email states.
“As an active customer with data stored in Amazon WorkDocs, you will be able to use WorkDocs until April 25, 2025. After this date, the Amazon WorkDocs site, APIs, and Drive will no longer be available, and all data will be permanently deleted,” it helpfully continues.
We asked Amazon for the reasons behind its decision to kill the WorkDocs service, and will update if we receive an answer.
Amazon says in its notification that it has built a new Data Migration tool for WorkDocs site administrators or AWS console users to export all data from a WorkDocs site to Amazon’s S3 storage service. Alternatively, customers can export data on a user-by-user basis via the download features of WorkDocs itself.
The letter cheerfully notifies users that “if you do not take any action, your WorkDocs data will be deleted on April 26, 2025.”
One user on Reddit expressed disappointment with the move, saying: “We’ve been migrating TBs of data up there over the last year. The question now is, what do we use instead?”
It appears that Amazon is steering customers towards DropBox as an alternative for the soon-to-be-defunct WorkDocs.
The letter states that a special migration offer will allow WorkDocs customers to get discounts on DropBox accounts when purchased through the AWS Marketplace. Eligible purchases of 10-100 licenses will receive a 40 percent discount, while purchases of 101 or more licenses will receive a 45 percent discount, but this is “at Dropbox’s discretion.”
We understand that it is rare for AWS to completely discontinue a service, but perhaps the writing has been on the wall. Last year, it was reported that Amazon had taken out more than a million licenses for Microsoft’s 365 suite for its own workforce. This combines Office apps with cloud-based services such as OneDrive for sharing and collaboration. That deal was said to be worth more than $1 billion over five years.
This decision by AWS again highlights to organizations that cloud services they rely on can and do simply disappear, and they really ought to have a backup strategy in case this happens.
The previous year, The Register reported that Amazon had halved the amount of credit it offered charities for access to AWS IT services, including WorkDocs. The cloud giant was aiming to spread its credit program across more charitable organizations by lowering the value of the credits in order to make more available. ®
Updated to add
“We are always innovating on behalf of customers, which means we must sometimes make the difficult decision to pivot when we believe our resources should be invested elsewhere to better serve them,” and AWS spokesperson told The Register.
“For that reason, we are no longer onboarding new customers to Amazon Workdocs and we will end support in April 2025. We informed customers of our decision so that they can begin moving their data, and we are working with them to recommend alternatives.”
