# Indices of elasticsearch

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-of-elasticsearch/313073>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** ilm-index-lifecycle-management\
**Created:** [August 28, 2022, 4:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-of-elasticsearch/313073 "2022-08-28T04:52:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Milan\_Dangol](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/milan_dangol/32/109145_2.png) [@Milan\_Dangol](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Milan_Dangol)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 4:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-of-elasticsearch/313073/1 "2022-08-28T04:52:33Z")

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Hello there! I am new to elasticsearch. So i was looking around ILM and it was a quite useful tool to remove old indices. But my concern here is, when i looked into /var/lib/elasticsearch. There was a folder named indices and i couldnt understand the name that were mention in it. So my question is what is the difference between these to screenshots, are they same or are they related to each other ?.

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/e/b/eb13405c6fa5719aa2259d2b4a7ccc52277fd262.png)  
 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/4/5/4576d2e84da0e40a27abf2b4aec7e62fe3e260c6.png)

Thank you in advance \<3

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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:** [August 28, 2022, 5:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-of-elasticsearch/313073/2 "2022-08-28T17:08:03Z")

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Hi @Milan_Dangol

That top picture is of the elasticsearch data directory, that is where the actual elasticsearch data is stored in binary / lucene format.

Indices data are stored in 1 or more segment files and those files can change over the life cycle of the index behind the scenes, various elasticsearch processes.

There is no direct intentional user oriented mapping between the indices and those directories.

Do not touch anything in those directories or you will corrupt the elasticsearch data and it will most likely be unrecoverable.

That directory is not meant to be accessed, viewed or changed by user.

All access to Elasticsearch data should be through the appropriate tools (Kibana, beats etc) or rest APIs.

Hope that helps.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Milan\_Dangol](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/milan_dangol/32/109145_2.png) [@Milan\_Dangol](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Milan_Dangol)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 8:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-of-elasticsearch/313073/3 "2022-08-29T08:51:38Z")

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@stephenb thank you for the explanation \<3

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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:** [September 26, 2022, 8:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-of-elasticsearch/313073/4 "2022-09-26T08:52:10Z")

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