Get All Items from DynamoDB with the AWS CLI

There is no "select all" in DynamoDB — reading a whole table means a paginated Scan. The good news: the AWS CLI auto-paginates, making as many 1 MB service calls as needed behind the scenes and printing one combined result.

Code

aws dynamodb scan --table-name 'Music'

The combined output holds every item in the table:

{
    "Items": [
        {"Artist": {"S": "Arturo Sandoval"}, "SongTitle": {"S": "Cubano Chant"}, ...}
    ],
    "Count": 1287,
    "ScannedCount": 1287
}

Explanation

• Auto-pagination — unlike the SDKs, the CLI follows LastEvaluatedKey for you by default: one command, every item. (--no-paginate limits it to a single service call — the first ~1 MB only.)
• Chunked output for big tables — the full table lands in memory before printing, so for large tables read it in slices: --max-items 1000 prints 1000 items plus a NextToken; resume with --starting-token <token>. Keep --page-size equal to --max-items to avoid missing/duplicated rows across chunks.
• Fewer bytes, same bill — --projection-expression 'Artist, SongTitle' (with --expression-attribute-names for reserved words) returns only those attributes, but a scan still bills every byte of every item read.
• Faster on big tables: parallel scan — run N copies with --segment i --total-segments N, each auto-paginating its own slice. Same total cost, much lower wall-clock time.
• Filtering while you're at it? --filter-expression drops items after they're read (and billed) — see Scan with a filter. Piping to jq? Add --output json and remember the values are DynamoDB JSON.

Do it visually

Eyeballing a table doesn't need a terminal full of DynamoDB JSON: download DynoTable to browse any table in a paginated grid — it pages through scans for you. And before you scan-and-pay, the DynamoDB pricing calculator shows what a full read of your table actually costs.

Related examples

• Get all items in Node.js — the same full read with an explicit loop.
• Get all items in Python — the same full read with boto3's paginator.
• DynamoDB Scan with the AWS CLI — scanning with a --filter-expression.
• Parallel scans — Segment/TotalSegments, worker counts, and when to bother.
• Why is my DynamoDB Scan slow and expensive? — the cost model and how to avoid it.
• DynamoDB ProvisionedThroughputExceededException — reading the whole table is the classic way to hit it.
• "The provided starting key is invalid" — a mangled resume key in the pagination loop.

References

• Scan — Amazon DynamoDB API Reference
• scan — AWS CLI Command Reference
• Using AWS CLI pagination options — AWS CLI User Guide
• DynamoDB read and write operations (capacity unit consumption) — Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide

Last verified 2026-07-13 against the official AWS documentation linked above.