# Automatically delete month old indices every month

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-delete-month-old-indices-every-month/246535>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [August 27, 2020, 2:39am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-delete-month-old-indices-every-month/246535 "2020-08-27T02:39:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mark.santos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@mark.santos](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mark.santos)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 2:39am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-delete-month-old-indices-every-month/246535/1 "2020-08-27T02:39:00Z")

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Hi everyone, I am new to Elasticsearch. I received an email notification that says " Your cluster is near its limit for storage space.". Btw, I am using function beat to transport logs from AWS Cloudwatch to Kibana. I was wondering how to automatically delete month old indices every month? Is there a way to schedule the deletion for a specified period? Thanks in advance, appreciate your help.

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 2:50am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-delete-month-old-indices-every-month/246535/2 "2020-08-27T02:50:53Z")

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Check out [ILM](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/ilm-start.html).

PS, we aren't all guys 🙂

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**Author:** ![mark.santos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@mark.santos](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mark.santos)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 6:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-delete-month-old-indices-every-month/246535/3 "2020-08-27T06:26:59Z")

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Hi @warkolm, is it possible to enable the ILM if the functionbeat is already deployed? Given the index template is already in place but without a policy yet. If yes, how? Thanks

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2020, 1:44am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-delete-month-old-indices-every-month/246535/4 "2020-08-31T01:44:35Z")

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[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.9/ilm-with-existing-indices.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.9/ilm-with-existing-indices.html) goes into that.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2020, 1:44am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-delete-month-old-indices-every-month/246535/5 "2020-09-28T01:44:57Z")

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