diff --git a/S3/Config.py b/S3/Config.py
index ec6bf8eff..eaf495d93 100644
--- a/S3/Config.py
+++ b/S3/Config.py
@@ -253,6 +253,11 @@ def read_config_file(self, configfile):
                 _option = _option.strip()
             self.update_option(option, _option)
 
+        # allow acl_public to be set from the config file too, even though by
+        # default it is set to None, and not present in the config file.
+        if cp.get('acl_public'):
+            self.update_option('acl_public', cp.get('acl_public'))
+
         if cp.get('add_headers'):
             for option in cp.get('add_headers').split(","):
                 (key, value) = option.split(':')
diff --git a/s3cmd b/s3cmd
index 9cddc597b..6785ab7f0 100755
--- a/s3cmd
+++ b/s3cmd
@@ -2726,7 +2726,8 @@ def main():
 
     ## Special handling for tri-state options (True, False, None)
     cfg.update_option("enable", options.enable)
-    cfg.update_option("acl_public", options.acl_public)
+    if options.acl_public is not None:
+        cfg.update_option("acl_public", options.acl_public)
 
     ## Check multipart chunk constraints
     if cfg.multipart_chunk_size_mb < MultiPartUpload.MIN_CHUNK_SIZE_MB: