# Question about curator

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-curator/118405>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 5, 2018, 8:34am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-curator/118405 "2018-02-05T08:34:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![peterch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e5b9ba/32.png) [@peterch](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/peterch)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 8:34am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-curator/118405/1 "2018-02-05T08:34:54Z")

</div>

Dear all,

May I know is it possible delete logs which older then 90 days instead of indices in curator? Thanks

Best Regards,  
Peter Chow

---

<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:** [February 5, 2018, 8:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-curator/118405/2 "2018-02-05T08:45:43Z")

</div>

Are you looking to selectively delete data from within an index? Are you not using time-based indices?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![theuntergeek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/theuntergeek/32/44961_2.png) [@theuntergeek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/theuntergeek)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 8:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-curator/118405/3 "2018-02-05T08:51:42Z")

</div>

@peterch What Christian is bringing up is important. A delete\_by\_query is much, much harder on an elasticsearch cluster than dropping an index in much the same way as 100,000 atomic `DELETE from TABLE where age>90days` is more taxing to a database than a `DROP TABLE`.

Curator is designed to delete indices for this reason. If there is any possible way you can change your indexing setup to use time-series indices, it will only help you in the long run, whether you use Curator or something else.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![theuntergeek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/theuntergeek/32/44961_2.png) [@theuntergeek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/theuntergeek)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 8:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-curator/118405/4 "2018-02-05T08:54:14Z")

</div>

Short answer: No. Curator only acts on indices, no matter the action.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 8:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-curator/118405/5 "2018-03-05T08:54:45Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.