ReceiveMessage - Amazon Simple Queue Service
Request SyntaxRequest ParametersResponse SyntaxResponse ElementsErrorsExamplesSee Also

ReceiveMessage

Retrieves one or more messages (up to 10), from the specified queue. Using the WaitTimeSeconds parameter enables long-poll support. For more information, see Amazon SQS Long Polling in the Amazon SQS Developer Guide.

Short poll is the default behavior where a weighted random set of machines is sampled on a ReceiveMessage call. Therefore, only the messages on the sampled machines are returned. If the number of messages in the queue is small (fewer than 1,000), you most likely get fewer messages than you requested per ReceiveMessage call. If the number of messages in the queue is extremely small, you might not receive any messages in a particular ReceiveMessage response. If this happens, repeat the request.

For each message returned, the response includes the following:

  • The message body.

  • An MD5 digest of the message body. For information about MD5, see RFC1321.

  • The MessageId you received when you sent the message to the queue.

  • The receipt handle.

  • The message attributes.

  • An MD5 digest of the message attributes.

The receipt handle is the identifier you must provide when deleting the message. For more information, see Queue and Message Identifiers in the Amazon SQS Developer Guide.

You can provide the VisibilityTimeout parameter in your request. The parameter is applied to the messages that Amazon SQS returns in the response. If you don't include the parameter, the overall visibility timeout for the queue is used for the returned messages. The default visibility timeout for a queue is 30 seconds.

Note

In the future, new attributes might be added. If you write code that calls this action, we recommend that you structure your code so that it can handle new attributes gracefully.

Request Syntax

{
   "AttributeNames": [ "string" ],
   "MaxNumberOfMessages": number,
   "MessageAttributeNames": [ "string" ],
   "MessageSystemAttributeNames": [ "string" ],
   "QueueUrl": "string",
   "ReceiveRequestAttemptId": "string",
   "VisibilityTimeout": number,
   "WaitTimeSeconds": number
}

Request Parameters

For information about the parameters that are common to all actions, see Common Parameters.

The request accepts the following data in JSON format.

AttributeNames

This parameter has been deprecated.

Important

This parameter has been discontinued but will be supported for backward compatibility. To provide attribute names, you are encouraged to use MessageSystemAttributeNames.

A list of attributes that need to be returned along with each message. These attributes include:

  • All – Returns all values.

  • ApproximateFirstReceiveTimestamp – Returns the time the message was first received from the queue (epoch time in milliseconds).

  • ApproximateReceiveCount – Returns the number of times a message has been received across all queues but not deleted.

  • AWSTraceHeader – Returns the AWS X-Ray trace header string.

  • SenderId

    • For a user, returns the user ID, for example ABCDEFGHI1JKLMNOPQ23R.

    • For an IAM role, returns the IAM role ID, for example ABCDE1F2GH3I4JK5LMNOP:i-a123b456.

  • SentTimestamp – Returns the time the message was sent to the queue (epoch time in milliseconds).

  • SqsManagedSseEnabled – Enables server-side queue encryption using SQS owned encryption keys. Only one server-side encryption option is supported per queue (for example, SSE-KMS or SSE-SQS).

  • MessageDeduplicationId – Returns the value provided by the producer that calls the SendMessage action.

  • MessageGroupId – Returns the value provided by the producer that calls the SendMessage action. Messages with the same MessageGroupId are returned in sequence.

  • SequenceNumber – Returns the value provided by Amazon SQS.

Type: Array of strings

Valid Values: All | Policy | VisibilityTimeout | MaximumMessageSize | MessageRetentionPeriod | ApproximateNumberOfMessages | ApproximateNumberOfMessagesNotVisible | CreatedTimestamp | LastModifiedTimestamp | QueueArn | ApproximateNumberOfMessagesDelayed | DelaySeconds | ReceiveMessageWaitTimeSeconds | RedrivePolicy | FifoQueue | ContentBasedDeduplication | KmsMasterKeyId | KmsDataKeyReusePeriodSeconds | DeduplicationScope | FifoThroughputLimit | RedriveAllowPolicy | SqsManagedSseEnabled

Required: No

MaxNumberOfMessages

The maximum number of messages to return. Amazon SQS never returns more messages than this value (however, fewer messages might be returned). Valid values: 1 to 10. Default: 1.

Type: Integer

Required: No

MessageAttributeNames

The name of the message attribute, where N is the index.

  • The name can contain alphanumeric characters and the underscore (_), hyphen (-), and period (.).

  • The name is case-sensitive and must be unique among all attribute names for the message.

  • The name must not start with AWS-reserved prefixes such as AWS. or Amazon. (or any casing variants).

  • The name must not start or end with a period (.), and it should not have periods in succession (..).

  • The name can be up to 256 characters long.

When using ReceiveMessage, you can send a list of attribute names to receive, or you can return all of the attributes by specifying All or .* in your request. You can also use all message attributes starting with a prefix, for example bar.*.

Type: Array of strings

Required: No

MessageSystemAttributeNames

A list of attributes that need to be returned along with each message. These attributes include:

  • All – Returns all values.

  • ApproximateFirstReceiveTimestamp – Returns the time the message was first received from the queue (epoch time in milliseconds).

  • ApproximateReceiveCount – Returns the number of times a message has been received across all queues but not deleted.

  • AWSTraceHeader – Returns the AWS X-Ray trace header string.

  • SenderId

    • For a user, returns the user ID, for example ABCDEFGHI1JKLMNOPQ23R.

    • For an IAM role, returns the IAM role ID, for example ABCDE1F2GH3I4JK5LMNOP:i-a123b456.

  • SentTimestamp – Returns the time the message was sent to the queue (epoch time in milliseconds).

  • SqsManagedSseEnabled – Enables server-side queue encryption using SQS owned encryption keys. Only one server-side encryption option is supported per queue (for example, SSE-KMS or SSE-SQS).

  • MessageDeduplicationId – Returns the value provided by the producer that calls the SendMessage action.

  • MessageGroupId – Returns the value provided by the producer that calls the SendMessage action. Messages with the same MessageGroupId are returned in sequence.

  • SequenceNumber – Returns the value provided by Amazon SQS.

Type: Array of strings

Valid Values: All | SenderId | SentTimestamp | ApproximateReceiveCount | ApproximateFirstReceiveTimestamp | SequenceNumber | MessageDeduplicationId | MessageGroupId | AWSTraceHeader | DeadLetterQueueSourceArn

Required: No

QueueUrl

The URL of the Amazon SQS queue from which messages are received.

Queue URLs and names are case-sensitive.

Type: String

Required: Yes

ReceiveRequestAttemptId

This parameter applies only to FIFO (first-in-first-out) queues.

The token used for deduplication of ReceiveMessage calls. If a networking issue occurs after a ReceiveMessage action, and instead of a response you receive a generic error, it is possible to retry the same action with an identical ReceiveRequestAttemptId to retrieve the same set of messages, even if their visibility timeout has not yet expired.

  • You can use ReceiveRequestAttemptId only for 5 minutes after a ReceiveMessage action.

  • When you set FifoQueue, a caller of the ReceiveMessage action can provide a ReceiveRequestAttemptId explicitly.

  • It is possible to retry the ReceiveMessage action with the same ReceiveRequestAttemptId if none of the messages have been modified (deleted or had their visibility changes).

  • During a visibility timeout, subsequent calls with the same ReceiveRequestAttemptId return the same messages and receipt handles. If a retry occurs within the deduplication interval, it resets the visibility timeout. For more information, see Visibility Timeout in the Amazon SQS Developer Guide.

    Important

    If a caller of the ReceiveMessage action still processes messages when the visibility timeout expires and messages become visible, another worker consuming from the same queue can receive the same messages and therefore process duplicates. Also, if a consumer whose message processing time is longer than the visibility timeout tries to delete the processed messages, the action fails with an error.

    To mitigate this effect, ensure that your application observes a safe threshold before the visibility timeout expires and extend the visibility timeout as necessary.

  • While messages with a particular MessageGroupId are invisible, no more messages belonging to the same MessageGroupId are returned until the visibility timeout expires. You can still receive messages with another MessageGroupId as long as it is also visible.

  • If a caller of ReceiveMessage can't track the ReceiveRequestAttemptId, no retries work until the original visibility timeout expires. As a result, delays might occur but the messages in the queue remain in a strict order.

The maximum length of ReceiveRequestAttemptId is 128 characters. ReceiveRequestAttemptId can contain alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) and punctuation (!"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~).

For best practices of using ReceiveRequestAttemptId, see Using the ReceiveRequestAttemptId Request Parameter in the Amazon SQS Developer Guide.

Type: String

Required: No

VisibilityTimeout

The duration (in seconds) that the received messages are hidden from subsequent retrieve requests after being retrieved by a ReceiveMessage request. If not specified, the default visibility timeout for the queue is used, which is 30 seconds.

Understanding VisibilityTimeout:

  • When a message is received from a queue, it becomes temporarily invisible to other consumers for the duration of the visibility timeout. This prevents multiple consumers from processing the same message simultaneously. If the message is not deleted or its visibility timeout is not extended before the timeout expires, it becomes visible again and can be retrieved by other consumers.

  • Setting an appropriate visibility timeout is crucial. If it's too short, the message might become visible again before processing is complete, leading to duplicate processing. If it's too long, it delays the reprocessing of messages if the initial processing fails.

  • You can adjust the visibility timeout using the --visibility-timeout parameter in the receive-message command to match the processing time required by your application.

  • A message that isn't deleted or a message whose visibility isn't extended before the visibility timeout expires counts as a failed receive. Depending on the configuration of the queue, the message might be sent to the dead-letter queue.

For more information, see Visibility Timeout in the Amazon SQS Developer Guide.

Type: Integer

Required: No

WaitTimeSeconds

The duration (in seconds) for which the call waits for a message to arrive in the queue before returning. If a message is available, the call returns sooner than WaitTimeSeconds. If no messages are available and the wait time expires, the call does not return a message list. If you are using the Java SDK, it returns a ReceiveMessageResponse object, which has a empty list instead of a Null object.

Important

To avoid HTTP errors, ensure that the HTTP response timeout for ReceiveMessage requests is longer than the WaitTimeSeconds parameter. For example, with the Java SDK, you can set HTTP transport settings using the NettyNioAsyncHttpClient for asynchronous clients, or the ApacheHttpClient for synchronous clients.

Type: Integer

Required: No

Response Syntax

{
   "Messages": [ 
      { 
         "Attributes": { 
            "string" : "string" 
         },
         "Body": "string",
         "MD5OfBody": "string",
         "MD5OfMessageAttributes": "string",
         "MessageAttributes": { 
            "string" : { 
               "BinaryListValues": [ blob ],
               "BinaryValue": blob,
               "DataType": "string",
               "StringListValues": [ "string" ],
               "StringValue": "string"
            }
         },
         "MessageId": "string",
         "ReceiptHandle": "string"
      }
   ]
}

Response Elements

If the action is successful, the service sends back an HTTP 200 response.

The following data is returned in JSON format by the service.

Messages

A list of messages.

Type: Array of Message objects

Errors

For information about the errors that are common to all actions, see Common Errors.

InvalidAddress

The specified ID is invalid.

HTTP Status Code: 400

InvalidSecurity

The request was not made over HTTPS or did not use SigV4 for signing.

HTTP Status Code: 400

KmsAccessDenied

The caller doesn't have the required KMS access.

HTTP Status Code: 400

KmsDisabled

The request was denied due to request throttling.

HTTP Status Code: 400

KmsInvalidKeyUsage

The request was rejected for one of the following reasons:

  • The KeyUsage value of the KMS key is incompatible with the API operation.

  • The encryption algorithm or signing algorithm specified for the operation is incompatible with the type of key material in the KMS key (KeySpec).

HTTP Status Code: 400

KmsInvalidState

The request was rejected because the state of the specified resource is not valid for this request.

HTTP Status Code: 400

KmsNotFound

The request was rejected because the specified entity or resource could not be found.

HTTP Status Code: 400

KmsOptInRequired

The request was rejected because the specified key policy isn't syntactically or semantically correct.

HTTP Status Code: 400

KmsThrottled

AWS KMS throttles requests for the following conditions.

HTTP Status Code: 400

OverLimit

The specified action violates a limit. For example, ReceiveMessage returns this error if the maximum number of in flight messages is reached and AddPermission returns this error if the maximum number of permissions for the queue is reached.

HTTP Status Code: 400

QueueDoesNotExist

Ensure that the QueueUrl is correct and that the queue has not been deleted.

HTTP Status Code: 400

RequestThrottled

The request was denied due to request throttling.

  • Exceeds the permitted request rate for the queue or for the recipient of the request.

  • Ensure that the request rate is within the Amazon SQS limits for sending messages. For more information, see Amazon SQS quotas in the Amazon SQS Developer Guide.

HTTP Status Code: 400

UnsupportedOperation

Error code 400. Unsupported operation.

HTTP Status Code: 400

Examples

The following example query request receives messages from the specified queue. The structure of AUTHPARAMS depends on the signature of the API request. For more information, see Examples of Signed Signature Version 4 Requests in the AWS General Reference.

Example

Using AWS JSON protocol (Default)

Sample Request

POST / HTTP/1.1
Host: sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
X-Amz-Target: AmazonSQS.ReceiveMessage
X-Amz-Date: <Date>
Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.0
Authorization: <AuthParams>
Content-Length: <PayloadSizeBytes>
Connection: Keep-Alive 
{
    "QueueUrl": "https://sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/177715257436/MyQueue/",
    "MaxNumberOfMessages": 5,
    "VisibilityTimeout": 15,
    "AttributeNames": ["All"]
}

Sample Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
x-amzn-RequestId: <requestId>
Content-Length: <PayloadSizeBytes>
Date: <Date>
Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.0
{
    "Messages": [
        {
            "Attributes": {
                "SenderId": "AIDASSYFHUBOBT7F4XT75",
                "ApproximateFirstReceiveTimestamp": "1677112433437",
                "ApproximateReceiveCount": "1",
                "SentTimestamp": "1677112427387"
            },
            "Body": "This is a test message",
            "MD5OfBody": "fafb00f5732ab283681e124bf8747ed1",
            "MessageId": "219f8380-5770-4cc2-8c3e-5c715e145f5e",
            "ReceiptHandle": "AQEBaZ+j5qUoOAoxlmrCQPkBm9njMWXqemmIG6shMHCO6fV20JrQYg/AiZ8JELwLwOu5U61W+aIX5Qzu7GGofxJuvzymr4Ph53RiR0mudj4InLSgpSspYeTRDteBye5tV/txbZDdNZxsi+qqZA9xPnmMscKQqF6pGhnGIKrnkYGl45Nl6GPIZv62LrIRb6mSqOn1fn0yqrvmWuuY3w2UzQbaYunJWGxpzZze21EOBtywknU3Je/g7G9is+c6K9hGniddzhLkK1tHzZKjejOU4jokaiB4nmi0dF3JqLzDsQuPF0Gi8qffhEvw56nl8QCbluSJScFhJYvoagGnDbwOnd9z50L239qtFIgETdpKyirlWwl/NGjWJ45dqWpiW3d2Ws7q"
        }
    ]
}

Example

Using AWS query protocol

Sample Request

POST /177715257436/MyQueue/ HTTP/1.1
Host: sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
X-Amz-Date: <Date>
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Authorization: <AuthParams>
Content-Length: <PayloadSizeBytes>
Connection: Keep-Alive
Action=ReceiveMessage
&MaxNumberOfMessages=5
&VisibilityTimeout=15
&AttributeName=All

Sample Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
<ReceiveMessageResponse xmlns="http://queue.amazonaws.com/doc/2012-11-05/">
    <ReceiveMessageResult>
        <Message>
            <MessageId>60e827c3-c8a5-410a-af0e-fb43746e70b1</MessageId>
            <ReceiptHandle>AQEBwPTK2fT2gy97H1iyU5in9umgT+Y4IOxyKGOzpZa8iemEqoR5/aPn0xAodmiVTzyrW7S4e8XwcWbB04XK92jIQzUpiGwRFA4Dl7r3GOw84Qzq/0OBQe/JaKxJw6iilafYA5fo1SJQo5Wg8xXbJHTVlJqgvTXd/UtlByLMhWMi0JMra1UUjYiPsGtYUpLVnOaRkYSPvzRnFFYUbcqCW9lm2Bi/jQKK6KNOZyCCfIh8TooE5i4P2L9N3o9yUHwMdv6p0nb5lKaGurQ2sJwwsyhXf38ZHnVN6pWwsqQnWKYuEXpxPofxd2lcLdgUurMpydS22DzCrkAaf6gmrdxbmCAoeQxE0sFf8alwX9yQmcOjny9aLGe7ro4Vl5o5KMr5hHM4vHEyhwi4wHeKM6MGX0vATA==</ReceiptHandle>
            <MD5OfBody>0e024d309850c78cba5eabbeff7cae71</MD5OfBody>
            <Body>test message body 1</Body>
            <Attribute>
                <Name>SenderId</Name>
                <Value>AIDASSYFHUBOBT7F4XT75</Value>
            </Attribute>
            <Attribute>
                <Name>ApproximateFirstReceiveTimestamp</Name>
                <Value>1677112300463</Value>
            </Attribute>
            <Attribute>
                <Name>ApproximateReceiveCount</Name>
                <Value>1</Value>
            </Attribute>
            <Attribute>
                <Name>SentTimestamp</Name>
                <Value>1677111805489</Value>
            </Attribute>
        </Message>
    </ReceiveMessageResult>
    <ResponseMetadata>
        <RequestId>5ba605cc-1e4b-58ba-93db-59bca8677ec9</RequestId>
    </ResponseMetadata>
</ReceiveMessageResponse>

Example

The following example enables long polling by calling the ReceiveMessage action with the WaitTimeSeconds parameter set to 10 seconds.

Using AWS JSON protocol (Default)

Sample Request

POST / HTTP/1.1
Host: sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
X-Amz-Target: AmazonSQS.ReceiveMessage
X-Amz-Date: <Date>
Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.0
Authorization: <AuthParams>
Content-Length: <PayloadSizeBytes>
Connection: Keep-Alive 
{
    "QueueUrl": "https://sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/177715257436/MyQueue/",
    "WaitTimeSeconds": 10,
    "MaxNumberOfMessages": 5,
    "VisibilityTimeout": 15,
    "AttributeNames": ["All"]
}

Example

The following example shows the request and response when using the parameter MessageSystemAttributeNames.

Sample Request

aws sqs receive-message \
  --queue-url https://sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/123456789012/MyQueue \
  --message-system-attribute-names SentTimestamp SenderId

Sample Response

{
  "Messages": [
    {
      "MessageId": "abc1234d-5678-90ab-cdef-EXAMPLE11111",
      "ReceiptHandle": "AQEBwJnKyrHigUMZj6rYigCgxlaS3SLy0a...",
      "MD5OfBody": "e99a18c428cb38d5f260853678922e03",
      "Body": "Example message",
      "Attributes": {
        "SenderId": "AIDAEXAMPLE123ABC",
        "SentTimestamp": "1638368280000"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Example

Using AWS query protocol

Sample Request

POST /177715257436/MyQueue/ HTTP/1.1
Host: sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
X-Amz-Date: <Date>
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Authorization: <AuthParams>
Content-Length: <PayloadSizeBytes>
Connection: Keep-Alive
Action=ReceiveMessage
&WaitTimeSeconds=10
&MaxNumberOfMessages=5
&VisibilityTimeout=15
&AttributeName=All

See Also

For more information about using this API in one of the language-specific AWS SDKs, see the following: