# How to apply new ILM policy to existing datastream index **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [December 5, 2024, 11:50am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-apply-new-ilm-policy-to-existing-datastream-index/371531 "2024-12-05T11:50:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 2
**Author:** ![racitup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c37758/32.png) [@racitup](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/racitup)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:55am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-apply-new-ilm-policy-to-existing-datastream-index/371531/2 "2024-12-05T11:55:37Z")
Inspired by this topic: > [@How can I add a ilm policy to an existing datastream index](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-can-i-add-a-ilm-policy-to-an-existing-datastream-index/316931): > > Some how I have got an index (currently being written) in a data stream which does not have an ilm setting and therefore is not getting rolled over. It is unclear to me what I should do. When I tried to close the index I got dire warnings about closing system indexes. I went into kibana -\> Index Management -\> [index name] -\> Manage index There was an option to `Remove lifecycle policy` - do that Unlike the above post I didn't need to close the index first, it worked while it was open After that the view and option changes to `Add lifecycle policy` - do that It allows you to select the updated lifecycle policy and gives a warning that I ignored: > Index has no aliases > > Policy filebeat is configured for rollover, but index .ds-filebeat-8.16.0-2024.11.19-000001 does not have an alias, which is required for rollover. (it seems this is an incorrect warning because a datastream doesn't need/have an alias) After a few minutes elasticsearch had gone through the lifecycle actions and rolled the index over. Woohoo! --- _[View the full topic](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-apply-new-ilm-policy-to-existing-datastream-index/371531)._