# Curator - delete everything except a time perioed
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-delete-everything-except-a-time-perioed/187946
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Tags:** curator
**Created:** [June 27, 2019, 11:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-delete-everything-except-a-time-perioed/187946 "2019-06-27T23:24:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@yungnvn](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/yungnvn)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2019, 11:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-delete-everything-except-a-time-perioed/187946/1 "2019-06-27T23:24:44Z")
Hi,
I am trying to delete a certain index past 24 days but keep a certain timeperiod from it. For example,
I want do delete everything older than 24 days but keep stuff from October '18 - December '18.
Here is the config i'm currently using:
> actions:
> 1:
> action: delete\_indices
> description: \>-
> Delete indices older than 24 days (based on index name), for purgatory-
> 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: purgatory-
> exclude:
> - filtertype: pattern
> kind: prefix
> value: purgatory-2018.10-
> exclude: True
> - filtertype: pattern
> kind: prefix
> value: purgatory-2018.11-
> exclude: True
> - filtertype: pattern
> kind: prefix
> value: purgatory-2018.12-
> exclude: True
> - filtertype: age
> source: name
> direction: older
> timestring: '%Y.%m.%d'
> unit: days
> unit\_count: 24
> exclude:
As you can see, i'm trying to delete anything older than 24 days but keep anything starting with purgatory-2018.10, purgatory-2018.11, purgatory-2018.12. I tried this in QA but hasn't worked.
If anyone has suggestions, any help would be appreciated!
Thanks
---
### Author:  [@theuntergeek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/theuntergeek)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2019, 11:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-delete-everything-except-a-time-perioed/187946/2 "2019-06-27T23:46:13Z")
> [@yungnvn](#):
>
> ```auto
> - filtertype: age
> source: name
> direction: older
> timestring: '%Y.%m.%d'
>
> ```
> [@yungnvn](#):
>
> ```auto
> - filtertype: pattern
> kind: prefix
> value: purgatory-2018.12-
> exclude: True
>
> ```
Your `value` for the prefix filter has a `-` at the end, but the `timestring` you're looking for is delimited by periods `.`. I'm guessing that if you changed your values to `purgatory-2018.12.` and similarly for the others, it will actually work the way you want.
---
### Author:  [@yungnvn](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/yungnvn)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2019, 5:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-delete-everything-except-a-time-perioed/187946/3 "2019-06-28T17:11:56Z")
Ah ! That makes sense. It's working now. Thanks a lot for the help!
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2019, 5:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-delete-everything-except-a-time-perioed/187946/4 "2019-07-26T17:12:03Z")
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