# Best practice to delete old Snapshots on Elasticsearch 2.4

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-practice-to-delete-old-snapshots-on-elasticsearch-2-4/255063>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 11, 2020, 12:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-practice-to-delete-old-snapshots-on-elasticsearch-2-4/255063 "2020-11-11T12:54:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Silas-91](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/silas-91/32/76806_2.png) [@Silas-91](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Silas-91)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 12:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-practice-to-delete-old-snapshots-on-elasticsearch-2-4/255063/1 "2020-11-11T12:54:08Z")

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Hi all,

does anyone know the best way to delete the old snapshots at elasticsearch 2.4.  
And what will happen if I delete a snapshot from 5 days ago? These are incremental snapshots. How do they behave when restoring?

Thanks

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**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 1:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-practice-to-delete-old-snapshots-on-elasticsearch-2-4/255063/2 "2020-11-11T13:28:54Z")

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> [@Silas-91](#):
>
> does anyone know the best way to delete the old snapshots at elasticsearch 2.4.

Use the DELETE Snapshots API.

> [@Silas-91](#):
>
> And what will happen if I delete a snapshot from 5 days ago? These are incremental snapshots. How do they behave when restoring?

That's fine. Backups are incremental behind the scene but you can consider them as a full backup. So you can remove whatever snapshot you want. Elasticsearch will always keep the needed files around.

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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:** [December 9, 2020, 1:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-practice-to-delete-old-snapshots-on-elasticsearch-2-4/255063/3 "2020-12-09T13:29:07Z")

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