# Searching Indexes based on Index Creation date
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-indexes-based-on-index-creation-date/52684
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [June 14, 2016, 4:00am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-indexes-based-on-index-creation-date/52684 "2016-06-14T04:00:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ramkchirra](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ramkchirra)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2016, 4:00am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-indexes-based-on-index-creation-date/52684/1 "2016-06-14T04:00:26Z")
Hi,
I have requirement of querying the ElasticSearch Indexes which are created prior to a given date. By using the Sense Plugin (Chrome Browser) for ElasticSearch , i am able to see the settings of the indexes which is having the field index."creation\_date". Can i use this field to Query the ES to return the indexes by creation date? I have multiple indexes starting with "testagent-"
the Settings of my index look like
Please let me know whether this is possible or not.
Thanks and Best Regards,
RK
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### Author:  [@danielmitterdorfer](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielmitterdorfer)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2016, 8:28am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-indexes-based-on-index-creation-date/52684/2 "2016-06-14T08:28:09Z")
Hi @ramkchirra,
you cannot use the index creation date in queries. Your problem is typically solved by time-based indices (one index per day / month / year depending on the use case). You can then reference [multiple indices in your query](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/search-search.html).
You could also combine this approach with a timestamp that you store in each document. For the coarse-grained selection you use indices and for the fine-grained selection you use the timestamp in the document.
Say, you want to retrieve all documents before March 5 2010 and you have one index for each year, then you can query all indices up until 2010: `/+testagent-200*,+testagent-2010`. For the fine-grained selection you restrict to all dates before March 5 2010 in the query.
However, I'd start with the easier approach of querying all indices (i.e. `/testagent-*`) and just relying on the timestamp restriction in the query. If that is too slow you can always start to optimize.
Daniel
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### Author:  [@ramkchirra](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ramkchirra)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2016, 9:23am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-indexes-based-on-index-creation-date/52684/3 "2016-06-14T09:23:59Z")
Thanks for the reply !! 🙂
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### Author:  [@danielmitterdorfer](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielmitterdorfer)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2016, 9:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-indexes-based-on-index-creation-date/52684/4 "2016-06-14T09:31:26Z")
You're welcome. I hope it helps you. 🙂
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2017, 10:44pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-indexes-based-on-index-creation-date/52684/5 "2017-07-05T22:44:00Z")