# Can I delete a older system index once a rollover has been made?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-a-older-system-index-once-a-rollover-has-been-made/316642>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [October 14, 2022, 1:44pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-a-older-system-index-once-a-rollover-has-been-made/316642 "2022-10-14T13:44:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![SamuelSMendes](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/samuelsmendes/32/104246_2.png) [@SamuelSMendes](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/SamuelSMendes)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 1:44pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-a-older-system-index-once-a-rollover-has-been-made/316642/1 "2022-10-14T13:44:07Z")

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So I got this index which got massive we were trying out the APM, now it has been made a rollover but the older one still have a huge impact on the cluster.

 ![Captura de Tela (1321)](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/4/9/4922d9816841c65203c1fa8801966b32ee18fc48.png)

Already talked to the team and decided to delete the 100GB one but if we try the following message comes by:

 ![Captura de Tela (1322)](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/d/f/df4bdabb9188817c745fcd4b5633c6983eb06a20.png)

Which leaded to the question, is it okay to delete it forcefully?

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**Author:** ![stephenb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/stephenb/32/40856_2.png) [@stephenb](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/stephenb)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-a-older-system-index-once-a-rollover-has-been-made/316642/2 "2022-10-14T19:03:52Z")

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Yes you can delete that it is a backing index for the `traces-apm-default` data stream ...

The data will be gone (hopefully you have snapshots if you decided you needed it)

What you really probably want to do it adjust the APM lifecycle policy at some point to delete at some point / days etc.

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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:** [November 11, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-a-older-system-index-once-a-rollover-has-been-made/316642/3 "2022-11-11T19:03:56Z")

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