# Curator cannot delete older indices **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [October 28, 2019, 2:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-cannot-delete-older-indices/205496 "2019-10-28T14:48:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jan\_Kaspar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jan_kaspar/32/44443_2.png) [@Jan\_Kaspar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jan_Kaspar)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2019, 2:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-cannot-delete-older-indices/205496/1 "2019-10-28T14:48:50Z")
Hi all, i would like to delete indices older X days. I found a lot of posts here but no one helped me. **My action file:** actions: 1: action: delete\_indices description: \>- Delete indices older than 60 days (based on index name), for winlogbeat- prefixed indices. Ignore the error if the filter does not result in an actionable list of indices (ignore\_empty\_list) and exit cleanly. options: ignore\_empty\_list: True #timeout\_override: #continue\_if\_exception: False disable\_action: False filters: - filtertype: pattern kind: prefix value: metricbeat- #exclude: - filtertype: age source: name direction: older timestring: '%Y.%m.%d' unit: days unit\_count: 2 #exclude: Problem is that it do not delete anything. I tryed to find something in debug. But dont know how to solve. 2019-10-28 15:41:41,459 DEBUG curator.indexlist \_\_not\_actionable:39 Index metricbeat-7.2.0-2019.10.26 is not actionable, removing from list. 2019-10-28 15:41:41,460 DEBUG curator.indexlist \_\_excludify:58 Removed from actionable list: metricbeat-7.2.0-2019.10.26 has index.lifecycle.name metricbeat-7.2.0 How to manage it? I have it in my testing environment and really need to delete indices. Thanks Jan ---
**Author:** ![B.M](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/b.m/32/56771_2.png) [@B.M](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/B.M)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2019, 3:14pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-cannot-delete-older-indices/205496/2 "2019-10-28T15:14:58Z")
Hi @Jan_Kaspar, Could you uncomment timeout\_override, continue\_if\_exception, the first exclude and change the value to metricbeat-7.2.0-\* ? ---
**Author:** ![Jan\_Kaspar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jan_kaspar/32/44443_2.png) [@Jan\_Kaspar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jan_Kaspar)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-cannot-delete-older-indices/205496/3 "2019-10-28T15:19:49Z")
Hi B.M I tryed that but without any success. Jan ---
**Author:** ![B.M](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/b.m/32/56771_2.png) [@B.M](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/B.M)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2019, 3:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-cannot-delete-older-indices/205496/4 "2019-10-28T15:39:01Z")
Could you share your config file ---
**Author:** ![theuntergeek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/theuntergeek/32/44961_2.png) [@theuntergeek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/theuntergeek)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2019, 3:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-cannot-delete-older-indices/205496/5 "2019-10-28T15:53:05Z")
This is expected behavior for this situation. > [@Jan\_Kaspar](#): > > ```auto > 2019-10-28 15:41:41,460 DEBUG curator.indexlist __excludify:58 Removed from actionable list: metricbeat-7.2.0-2019.10.26 has index.lifecycle.name metricbeat-7.2.0 > > ``` Particularly: `has index.lifecycle.name metricbeat-7.2.0` This means the index is associated with an ILM policy. ILM is Elasticsearch's relatively new [Index Lifecycle Management](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.2/index-lifecycle-management.html) functionality. You ought to investigate using ILM to manage your indices, if you can. If for some reason ILM does not meet your needs and/or you'd prefer to [use Curator in conjunction with ILM](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/client/curator/5.8/ilm-or-curator.html), in order to prevent Curator from acting on any ILM associated index, it filters them by default. You can set the [`allow_ilm_indices`](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/client/curator/5.8/ilm-and-curator.html) option to `true`. ---
**Author:** ![Jan\_Kaspar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jan_kaspar/32/44443_2.png) [@Jan\_Kaspar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jan_Kaspar)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-cannot-delete-older-indices/205496/6 "2019-10-28T17:14:02Z")
Hi, allow\_ilm\_indices: true solved my problem. Now indices are removed as I expected. I have to delete indices because of storage space. I didnt know that ILM can delete indices. Thanks, Jan ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-cannot-delete-older-indices/205496/7 "2019-11-25T17:14:04Z")
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