DataCite Monthly Data File

The DataCite Monthly Data File contains metadata for all publicly available DataCite DOIs registered up to the end of the last month. The data file is distributed via AWS S3 and is currently available to all DataCite Members and Consortium Organizations.

Each month, DataCite generates a new monthly data file containing metadata for all DataCite DOIs, including those recently registered or updated. Each monthly data file is generated within the first few days of the month and replaces the last.

All metadata contained in the file is freely available under a CC0 waiver. For more information, see the DataCite Data File Use Policy.

Contents of the Monthly Data File

Directory structure

The monthly data file contains a top-level dois folder. The dois folder contains a series of folders named with an updated_YYYY-MM convention. Each of these folders contains:

1. All Findable DataCite DOI records updated during the corresponding month (at the time the monthly data file was generated).
2. Tabular report for the corresponding month.

The directory structure looks like this:

dois
├── updated_2024-07
│   ├── 2024-07.csv.gz
│   ├── part_0000.jsonl.gz
│   ├── part_0001.jsonl.gz
│   ├── part_0002.jsonl.gz
├── updated_2024-08
... ├── 2024-08.csv.gz
    ├── part_0000.jsonl.gz
    ├── part_0001.jsonl.gz
    ├── part_0002.jsonl.gz
    ├── part_0003.jsonl.gz
    ...

DataCite DOI records

DataCite DOI records are compressed in a series of gzip files within each updated_YYYY-MM folder. Each gzip file contains up to 10,000 DataCite DOI records in JSON Lines format. The .gz files are named with a part_[four-digit part number].jsonl.gz convention.

What DataCite DOI records are included?

The monthly data file contains a record of every Findable state DOI at the time the file was generated. Each record is represented once in a folder corresponding to the month the DOI was last updated.

What is the format of individual records?

The format of individual records in the file will reflect a DOI singleton response from the DataCite REST API with the following adjustments:

• The records contain additional affiliation and publisher metadata returned when the following REST API URL parameters are set: affiliation=true and publisher=true. See Can I see more detailed affiliation and publisher information in the REST API? for more details.
• The records do not contain the xml attribute.

Tabular reports

Each updated_YYYY-MM folder contains a tabular report in CSV format, compressed with gzip, that contains:

• A list of all registered DataCite DOIs (in Findable or Registered state) updated during the corresponding month at the time the file was generated
• The date they were updated
• Their current state (findable or registered)
• Their current Repository ID.

Rows in the CSV file are structured like the following:

Registered state DOIs are included to identify DOIs that are no longer publicly available . Repository IDs aid in identifying DOIs that have moved between repositories.

MANIFEST file

The root of the S3 bucket contains a file called MANIFEST which contains a list of all the files in the bucket and their size in bytes, for example:

dois/updated_2011-03/part_0000.jsonl.gz 41
dois/updated_2011-03/2011-03.csv.gz 375
dois/updated_2011-04/2011-04.csv.gz 154
dois/updated_2011-04/part_0000.jsonl.gz 696
...

This file can be used to generate the S3 URLs for individual files without needing to recursively list the contents.

Access the Monthly Data File

This service is currently available to all DataCite Members and Consortium Organizations, who can use their existing Member, Consortium Organization, or Repository credentials to authenticate and download the contents of the data file.

Access credentials

To obtain a set of AWS credentials permitting access to the S3 bucket, you must make an authenticated HTTP GET request to the DataCite REST API using your existing Member, Consortium Organization, or Repository credentials.

Here is an example curl command to retrieve AWS credentials:

curl --user YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID:YOUR_PASSWORD https://api.datacite.org/credentials/datafile

This endpoint will return the three parts of the AWS credentials required: the access key ID, the secret access key, and the session token. All three parts must be supplied in your subsequent requests to the S3 bucket.

By default, the response is a JSON object, but a preconfigured AWS Credential block suitable for use with the AWS CLI can be accessed by appending ?format=text to the request URL, or by passing an HTTP Accept header of text/plain.

Issued credentials are temporary and valid for one hour. If you require access beyond this, you must request a new set of credentials from the DataCite REST API.

Data file location

The monthly data file is stored in an Amazon S3 bucket with the following bucket name: s3://monthly-datafile.datacite.org.

Using the credentials

Once you have obtained a set of temporary access credentials, you can access the contents of the Data File using the AWS CLI tools, the AWS SDK for your chosen language, or other tools such as cURL and supplying the credentials. Get started with the guide below.

Getting started with the Data File using AWS CLI

First, install AWS CLI if you haven’t already: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/getting-started-install.html

To access the Data File, you will need to retrieve AWS credentials from the DataCite REST API using your Member, Consortium Organization, or Repository credentials. Use a curl command like the following to retrieve AWS credentials from DataCite:

curl --user YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID:YOUR_PASSWORD https://api.datacite.org/credentials/datafile

A successful response will look like this:

{
    "bucket": "monthly-datafile.datacite.org",
    "access_key_id": "EXAMPLE_KEY_ID",
    "secret_access_key": "EXAMPLE_ACCESS_KEY",
    "session_token": "EXAMPLE_SESSION_TOKEN",
    "expires_in": 3600
}

Add these temporary credentials to your AWS credentials file using the following guide: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/v1/userguide/cli-authentication-short-term.html You may need to create the credentials file at ~/.aws/credentials on Linux and macOS systems and %USERPROFILE%\.aws\credentials on Windows if it doesn’t exist already.

Your updated credentials file should look like this once populated with the access_key_id, secret_access_key, and session_token from the earlier response:

[default] 
aws_access_key_id = EXAMPLE_KEY_ID 
aws_secret_access_key = EXAMPLE_ACCESS_KEY
aws_session_token = EXAMPLE_SESSION_TOKEN

Now you can use AWS CLI commands to explore the file and retrieve metadata. Use the following to get a list of all of the folders in the /dois/ directory:

aws s3 ls s3://monthly-datafile.datacite.org/dois/

Try downloading the MANIFEST file to the current directory:

aws s3 cp s3://monthly-datafile.datacite.org/MANIFEST ./

Try downloading all of the DataCite DOI records created or updated in November 2025 to the current directory:

aws s3 cp s3://monthly-datafile.datacite.org/dois/updated_2025-11/ ./ --recursive

Building integrations

There are many other ways to access and work with the Data File using command line tools like AWS CLI as well as AWS SDKs available for Python, Ruby, and other programming languages. More detailed instructions and example code for each of these pathways can be found in a dedicated GitHub repository: https://github.com/datacite/datafile-access-examples.