# Renaming of indices during Elastic Search Upgrade

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/renaming-of-indices-during-elastic-search-upgrade/377680>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** ilm-index-lifecycle-management\
**Created:** [April 30, 2025, 2:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/renaming-of-indices-during-elastic-search-upgrade/377680 "2025-04-30T14:51:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Kavya\_2708](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kavya_2708/32/142905_2.png) [@Kavya\_2708](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Kavya_2708)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 2:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/renaming-of-indices-during-elastic-search-upgrade/377680/1 "2025-04-30T14:51:30Z")

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We are upgrading our elastic-search , kibana cluster from 7.17 to 8.17. As part of the upgrade, we are required to reindex the existing indices. During this process it is renaming the indices. ex. it is renaming aps to reindexed-v7-aps. This will be an issue as the applications teams have the previous name in the code. How can we prevent the renaming?

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**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:** [April 30, 2025, 3:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/renaming-of-indices-during-elastic-search-upgrade/377680/2 "2025-04-30T15:33:59Z")

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> [@Kavya\_2708](#):
>
> How can we prevent the renaming?

It is not possible, if you need to reindex an index you cannot use the same name as the index still exists in the cluster.

I'm assuming that this index does not receive writes anymore, so after the reindex for the renamed index finishes, you would need to remove the old index and then do another reindex to use the old index name.

Also make sure you have backups before doing this.

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**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:** [April 30, 2025, 3:44pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/renaming-of-indices-during-elastic-search-upgrade/377680/3 "2025-04-30T15:44:50Z")

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> [@leandrojmp](#):
>
> I'm assuming that this index does not receive writes anymore, so after the reindex for the renamed index finishes, you would need to remove the old index and then do another reindex to use the old index name.

Once you have removed the old index you can avoid reindexing again by either cloning the new index back into the old name or simply create an alias with the old name for the new index.

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**Author:** ![Kavya\_2708](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kavya_2708/32/142905_2.png) [@Kavya\_2708](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Kavya_2708)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 3:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/renaming-of-indices-during-elastic-search-upgrade/377680/4 "2025-04-30T15:53:04Z")

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Thank you Leandro for the response

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**Author:** ![Kavya\_2708](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kavya_2708/32/142905_2.png) [@Kavya\_2708](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Kavya_2708)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 3:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/renaming-of-indices-during-elastic-search-upgrade/377680/5 "2025-04-30T15:53:54Z")

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Christian, I did the reindex using the Elastic Search upgrade assistant. When I queried for aliases, I see the alias already exists