# Periodic delete of old indices using curator
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/periodic-delete-of-old-indices-using-curator/85715
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [May 15, 2017, 7:28am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/periodic-delete-of-old-indices-using-curator/85715 "2017-05-15T07:28:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mathias](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mathias)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2017, 7:28am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/periodic-delete-of-old-indices-using-curator/85715/1 "2017-05-15T07:28:20Z")
Hi,
I have tried out curator 5.0.1 and can make it clean out older indices than 3 days when I manually run curator.
I am not sure about how curator is expected to work. Documentation is not clear.
Does it expect me t run curator command every time I want to delete old indices?
I thought I could configure an run it once and then it would take care of old indices from that point without any manual interaction.
But it does not seem to work that way. Indices are created and they become older and older.
Do I need to create a cron job for curator?
Br Mathias
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### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2017, 9:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/periodic-delete-of-old-indices-using-curator/85715/2 "2017-05-15T09:24:11Z")
> [@mathias](#):
>
> Do I need to create a cron job for curator?
Yes that is correct.
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### Author:  [@mathias](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mathias)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2017, 11:37am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/periodic-delete-of-old-indices-using-curator/85715/3 "2017-05-16T11:37:16Z")
Thanks, scheduling with cron works.
It took me to next problem but I take that as a separate issue.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2017, 11:41am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/periodic-delete-of-old-indices-using-curator/85715/4 "2017-06-13T11:41:47Z")
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