Changes to PMC Article Dataset Distribution Services Coming in 2026

PMC will make major changes to our Article Dataset Distribution Services in 2026. In August 2026, you will need to access full text article data files through the PMC Cloud Service instead of the PMC FTP Service. This change will provide you with more reliable performance, faster retrieval times, and greater flexibility in retrieving only the types and number of files you wish to work with. 

Since this may impact operational workflows, we are providing a transition period from February to August. During this time, the FTP Service, OA Web Service API, and the current PMC Cloud Service files will remain available concurrently with the updated PMC Cloud Service on AWS.

What will this transition look like?

• In early February, NCBI began updating the PMC Cloud Service on AWS for retrieval of the PMC Open Access Subset, the Author Manuscript Dataset, and the Historical OCR Dataset, collectively known as the PMC Article Datasets:
  • All available article data files (XML, TXT, PDF, media and supplementary material) will be available in a new unified structure on the updated PMC Cloud Service
  • All article data files will be available individually; there will be no compressed packages or bulk packages  
  • The PMC Cloud Service article XML is the same as the article XML made available through PMC's OAI-PMH API and E-Utilities eFetch API
• In March 2026, the PMC Article Datasets on the current PMC FTP Service will be moved to a new FTP location; no other data changes will take place to accompany this move. This intentional disruption will alert users to upcoming changes to PMC Cloud Service on AWS.
• In August 2026, the updated PMC Cloud Service structure on AWS will become the primary source of retrieval of files from the PMC Article Datasets:
  • The PMC Article Datasets files will be removed from the current PMC FTP Service
  • The PMC OA Web Service API - a utility for locating individual article packages on the FTP Service - will no longer be available 
  • The current PMC Cloud Service files will be removed entirely from AWS 

More information

We encourage you to begin working with the updated PMC Cloud Service structure and adjust your workflows. Details of the structure and how to access the new Cloud Service data are available in the readme file. For additional details about the transition and new Cloud service, please visit our FAQs. 

As a reminder, NCBI makes the PMC Article Datasets freely accessible on Amazon Web Services (AWS), without charge, through either an HTTPS or S3 URL, and without any log-in requirement for retrieval. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) works with the AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program to provide this access.

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