diff --git a/changelog/21159.txt b/changelog/21159.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..25c1e53d90d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/21159.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+```release-note:improvement
+storage/dynamodb: Speed up list and delete of large directories by only requesting keys from DynamoDB
+```
+
diff --git a/physical/dynamodb/dynamodb.go b/physical/dynamodb/dynamodb.go
index 7b6413f143a0..c4484d20d446 100644
--- a/physical/dynamodb/dynamodb.go
+++ b/physical/dynamodb/dynamodb.go
@@ -410,6 +410,11 @@ func (d *DynamoDBBackend) List(ctx context.Context, prefix string) ([]string, er
 				}},
 			},
 		},
+		ProjectionExpression: aws.String("#key, #path"),
+		ExpressionAttributeNames: map[string]*string{
+			"#key":  aws.String("Key"),
+			"#path": aws.String("Path"),
+		},
 	}
 
 	d.permitPool.Acquire()
@@ -453,6 +458,11 @@ func (d *DynamoDBBackend) hasChildren(prefix string, exclude []string) (bool, er
 				}},
 			},
 		},
+		ProjectionExpression: aws.String("#key, #path"),
+		ExpressionAttributeNames: map[string]*string{
+			"#key":  aws.String("Key"),
+			"#path": aws.String("Path"),
+		},
 		// Avoid fetching too many items from DynamoDB for performance reasons.
 		// We want to know if there are any children we don't expect to see.
 		// Answering that question requires fetching a minimum of one more item