AWS S3 Data Pipeline: Troubleshooting Binary File Downloads

Hyun C. · 2025-08-08T09:20:18.565Z

I setup a AWS S3 data pipeline, and when I go to AWS Console and download the exported file (gunzipped JSON file), it's a binary file and not a text JSON. Is this normal? How do I fix this?

Yes, this is normal behavior. When you export data from Mixpanel to AWS S3 using Data Pipelines, the files are typically compressed using gzip for efficient storage and transfer. This means the files you download will be in a binary gzip format (with a .gz extension), not plain text JSON. If you try to open them directly, they will appear as binary.How to fix/view the data: To read the exported data, you need to decompress (gunzip) the file first. After decompression, you will get a text file containing JSON lines (each line is a JSON object representing an event or record).Example command to decompress:Why this happens: Mixpanel exports data in gzip-compressed format by default to optimize for storage and transfer speed. This is documented in the setup and export guides for AWS S3 pipelines, which mention that files are written in this format and should be decompressed before use Mixpanel AWS S3 Integration Guide.If you need to automate processing, you can use standard tools or scripts (e.g., Python’s gzip module) to read and process these files programmatically.Summary: The binary file is expected—just decompress it to access the JSON data inside. No changes to your pipeline setup are needed.

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