# How to Disable Default Index Creation in ELK and Kibana to Save Storage Space

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-disable-default-index-creation-in-elk-and-kibana-to-save-storage-space/366785>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [September 19, 2024, 10:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-disable-default-index-creation-in-elk-and-kibana-to-save-storage-space/366785 "2024-09-19T10:19:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Krishnamohan\_M](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/krishnamohan_m/32/137710_2.png) [@Krishnamohan\_M](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Krishnamohan_M)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 10:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-disable-default-index-creation-in-elk-and-kibana-to-save-storage-space/366785/1 "2024-09-19T10:19:21Z")

</div>

Hi ELK Community,

I'm currently facing a significant storage issue due to the default indices created by ELK and Kibana. My environment has over 40 indices,  
These indices are consuming a considerable amount of storage space. I would like to disable the creation of these default indices to optimize storage usage. Could anyone guide me on how to disable or manage the default indices effectively?

Your assistance will be greatly appreciated  
ELK-version: 8.13

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![leandrojmp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/leandrojmp/32/107231_2.png) [@leandrojmp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/leandrojmp)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 1:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-disable-default-index-creation-in-elk-and-kibana-to-save-storage-space/366785/2 "2024-09-19T13:41:59Z")

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Hello and welcome,

Please share some evidence of the indices you are talking about, it is not clear what you are referring when you say _default indices_.

Get a screenshot from Kibana or run the following requests in Kibana Dev Tools and share the result indicating which are the indices.

```auto
GET _cat/indices

```

Also, the indices that elasticsearch created automatically are used internally by multiple features and are required.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Krishnamohan\_M](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/krishnamohan_m/32/137710_2.png) [@Krishnamohan\_M](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Krishnamohan_M)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2024, 5:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-disable-default-index-creation-in-elk-and-kibana-to-save-storage-space/366785/3 "2024-09-20T05:56:11Z")

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In elk.conf I have added \* \* `action.auto_create_index: false`  
but it's not reflecting

```auto
.apm-agent-configuration
.apm-custom-link
.apm-source-map
.ds-.kibana-event-log-ds-2024.09.02-000014
.ds-.kibana-event-log-ds-2024.09.11-000020
.ds-.logs-deprecation.elasticsearch-default-2024.07.19-000004
.ds-.logs-deprecation.elasticsearch-default-2024.08.18-000005
.ds-.logs-deprecation.elasticsearch-default-2024.09.17-000007
.ds-filebeat-8.12.2-2024.03.19-000001
.ds-ilm-history-5-2024.05.11-000003
.ds-ilm-history-7-2024.08.23-000013
.ds-logs-generic-default-2024.04.25-000002
.ds-metricbeat-8.12.0-2024.04.11-000002
.ds-metricbeat-8.12.2-2024.04.17-000002
.internal.alerts-default.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-ml.anomaly-detection-health.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-ml.anomaly-detection.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-observability.apm.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-observability.logs.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-observability.metrics.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-observability.slo.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-observability.threshold.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-observability.uptime.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-security.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-stack.alerts-default-000001
.internal.alerts-transform.health.alerts-default-000001
.kibana-observability-ai-assistant-conversations-000001
.kibana-observability-ai-assistant-kb-000001
.kibana_8.15.0_001
.kibana_alerting_cases_8.12.2_001
.kibana_alerting_cases_8.15.0_001
.kibana_analytics_8.15.0_001
.kibana_ingest_8.15.0_001
.kibana_security_solution_8.15.0_001
.kibana_task_manager_8.15.0_001
.slo-observability.sli-v3.3
.slo-observability.summary-v3.3
.slo-observability.summary-v3.3.temp
.tasks
kibana-observability-ai-assistant-conversations-000001

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2024, 6:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-disable-default-index-creation-in-elk-and-kibana-to-save-storage-space/366785/4 "2024-09-20T06:14:19Z")

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What is the size of these indices? I would expect most of them to be rather small.