Find applications using AWS SDK for Java 1.x clients

Before migrating to the AWS SDK for Java 2.x, you need to identify which applications in your environment use SDK for Java 1.x clients. You can use CloudTrail logs to trace SDK usage, search application logs for deprecation warnings, inspect your source code and build configurations, or examine your deployable Java artifacts. Use whichever methods are available in your environment.

Use CloudTrail Lake to find applications with 1.x clients

AWS CloudTrail Lake lets you query events recorded by CloudTrail. Follow these steps to create a data lake that identifies SDK versions used by your applications:

The userAgent field in each record contains the SDK version that made the request. Use this field to identify applications using SDK for Java 1.x.

The following sample query finds all requests from user applications and third-party tools made with SDK for Java 1.x starting from June 17, 2025, for an EventDatastoreID sample-Data-Store-Id:

select userIdentity, eventSource, awsRegion,
    eventName, eventType, eventTime, userAgent,
    requestParameters, sourceIPAddress
 from sample-Data-Store-Id
where eventTime > '2025-06-17 00:00:00'
and userAgent like '%aws-sdk-java/1.%'
and userAgent not like '%aws-internal/%'
order by eventTime desc

An example of event content in the query result looks like this:

{
    "userIdentity": "{
         "type": "IAMUser",
         "principalId": "AIDAJ45Q7YFFAREXAMPLE",
         "arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/Alice",
         "accountId": "123456789012",
         "accessKeyId": "",
         "userName": "Alice"
    }",
    "eventSource": "dynamodb.amazonaws.com",
    "awsRegion": "us-west-2",
    "eventName": "ListTables",
    "eventType": "AwsApiCall",
    "eventTime": "2025-07-01 02:23:52.000",
    "userAgent": "aws-sdk-java/1.12.746 Linux/5.10.240 OpenJDK/11.0.25+9-LTS ...",
    "requestParameters": "",
    "sourceIPAddress": "12.345.6.78"
}

You can use this information to help determine when and where the request was made.

In the example, a DynamoDB ListTables request was made at 2025-07-01 02:23:52 (UTC) from the IP Address 12.345.6.78 with the credentials of the IAM user named Alice. The userAgent field's value shows that the request was made using the AWS SDK for Java version 1.12.746 from a Linux system with JDK 11.

For a description of the fields in the AWS CloudTrail event record, see CloudTrail record contents for management, data, and network activity events .

If CloudTrail is not enabled in your account, contact your organization's AWS account administrator to enable it, or use one of the alternative methods described in the following sections.

CloudTrail Lake charges for data ingested and data scanned per query. To minimize costs, filter queries to specific time ranges and regions. For current pricing, see AWS CloudTrail Pricing.

Search application warning-level logs for SDK deprecation

Starting with version 1.12.767 (released on July 30, 2024), the AWS SDK for Java 1.x emits a deprecation warning at application startup. You can search your application logs for this warning to identify which applications and hosts are using SDK for Java 1.x.

The exact wording of the warning depends on the SDK version:

The trailing ... indicates that the warning message continues with additional text. You can search for the common prefix The AWS SDK for Java 1.x to find either version of the warning.

The following example demonstrates searching for this warning using grep:

grep -r "The AWS SDK for Java 1.x" /path/to/your/application/logs/

If the warning is found, the grep command prints the matching log lines. If no warning is found, either your application is not using SDK for Java 1.x, or it uses a version earlier than 1.12.767. In that case, use one of the other methods described in this document.

Search source code and dependencies

You can search your codebase and build configuration files for references to the AWS SDK for Java 1.x. The key identifier is the com.amazonaws group ID, which is used by all SDK for Java 1.x artifacts.

The following examples demonstrate using grep to search for com.amazonaws references across common Java project files.

Example: Search Java source files for SDK for Java 1.x imports (run from project root directory)

grep -r "import com.amazonaws" --include="*.java" .

Example output:

src/main/java/com/example/App.java:import com.amazonaws.services.s3.AmazonS3;

Example: Search Maven pom.xml files for SDK for Java 1.x dependencies (run from project root directory)

grep -r "com.amazonaws" --include="pom.xml" .

Example output:

pom.xml:    <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>

Example: Search Gradle build files for SDK for Java 1.x dependencies (run from project root directory)

grep -r "com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk" --include="*.gradle" .

Example output:

build.gradle:    implementation 'com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-s3:1.12.xxx'

The preceding grep commands identify SDK for Java 1.x references declared directly in your source and build files. However, your application might also depend on SDK for Java 1.x transitively — through a third-party library that itself depends on the SDK. Use your build tool's dependency tree to find both direct and transitive SDK for Java 1.x dependencies. Choose the example that matches your build system.

Example: Use Maven to find all transitive SDK for Java 1.x dependencies (run from project root directory)

mvn dependency:tree -Dincludes=com.amazonaws

Example output:

[INFO] com.example:my-application:jar:1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] +- com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-s3:jar:1.12.746:compile
[INFO] |  \- com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-core:jar:1.12.746:compile
[INFO] \- some.thirdparty:library:jar:2.3.1:compile
[INFO]    \- com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-dynamodb:jar:1.12.600:compile

The -Dincludes=com.amazonaws flag filters the tree to show only SDK for Java 1.x artifacts. In this example, aws-java-sdk-s3 is a direct dependency, but aws-java-sdk-dynamodb is a transitive dependency brought in by some.thirdparty:library.

Example: Use Gradle to find all transitive SDK for Java 1.x dependencies (run from project root directory)

gradle dependencies --configuration runtimeClasspath | grep "com.amazonaws"

Example output:

+--- com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-s3:1.12.746
|    \--- com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-core:1.12.746
\--- com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-dynamodb:1.12.600

Gradle does not have a built-in dependency filter equivalent to Maven's -Dincludes, so piping through grep is the simplest approach.

Inspect deployable Java artifacts

You can inspect your deployable Java artifacts (JARs, WARs, or EARs) to confirm whether the AWS SDK for Java 1.x is packaged with your application. Java archive files are ZIP-format files. To determine if SDK for Java 1.x is present, look for the file com/amazonaws/sdk/versionInfo.properties inside the archive. This file is included in the aws-java-sdk-core module and contains the SDK version number.

Quick check with the jar command

For uber-jars where all dependency classes are merged at the top level, list the archive contents and search for the version file:

In the following examples, replace myapp.jar with the path to your application's JAR file.

jar -tf myapp.jar | grep 'versionInfo.properties'

If the SDK is present, the output is:

com/amazonaws/sdk/versionInfo.properties

If the jar command is not available in your environment (for example, JRE-only or minimal container images), you can use unzip -l instead:

unzip -l myapp.jar | grep 'versionInfo.properties'

To print the version:

unzip -p myapp.jar com/amazonaws/sdk/versionInfo.properties

Example output:

platform=java
version=1.12.xxx