Is it possible to retrieve messages from SQS while they're invisible?

Question

Is it possible to retrieve messages from an SQS queue during their visibility timeout if you don't have the message id? I.e. something along the lines of "get invisible messages" or "get messages currently being processed".

I'm working with large timeouts and sometimes I'd like to be able to inspect the queue to see what's left. I'd rather not have to wait for a 5 hour timeout to expire.

I'm working with boto in python.

Thanks.

Answer 1

As far as I know there is no way of doing this. Seeing as your processing code should only take what it needs off the queue and nothing more it doesn't seem like you would ever need to do this. Do your jobs actually take 5hrs to complete? I assume based on "I'm working with large timeouts" they do but if not you can set the expiration to make it a shorter period.