<br />

This page describes how to use the Google Cloud console and the Google Cloud CLI
to configure time to live (TTL) policies.

## Time to live overview

Use TTL policies to automatically
remove stale data from your databases. A TTL policy designates a given field as
the expiration time for documents in a given collection. With TTL, you can
decrease storage costs by cleaning out obsolete data. Data is typically deleted
within 24 hours after its expiration date.

### Pricing

TTL delete operations count towards your document delete costs. For pricing
of delete operations, see [Cloud Firestore Enterprise edition pricing](https://cloud.google.com/firestore/enterprise/pricing).

### Limits and constraints

- You can mark only one field per collection as a TTL field.
- You can have a maximum of 500 field-level TTL configurations.

### TTL deletion

Note the following key behaviors of TTL-driven deletion:

- Deletion through TTL is not an instantaneous process. Expired documents
  continue to appear in queries and lookup requests until the TTL process
  actually deletes them. TTL trades deletion timeliness for the benefit of
  reduced total cost of ownership for deletions.
  Data is typically deleted within 24 hours after its expiration date.

- Applying a TTL policy on an existing collection results in a bulk
  deletion of all expired data according to the new TTL policy. Note
  that this bulk deletion is also not instantaneous and depends on how much data
  exists for that collection.

- If a document has an expiration time in the past and you add a new TTL policy
  to the collection, the document will be deleted within 24 hours
  of when the TTL policy finishes setup and becomes active.

- TTL does not necessarily delete documents in the same order as their
  expiration timestamps.

- Deletions are not done transactionally. Documents with the same expiration
  time are not necessarily deleted at the same time. If you require this
  behavior, perform the deletions using a client library.

- Cloud Firestore will always honor the latest TTL field to determine the
  expiration. For example, if an expired but not-yet-deleted document has its
  TTL field updated to a later date, the document won't be expired and the
  new date will be used.

- Cloud Firestore expires a document only when the TTL field is set to either a
  `Date and time`/`BSON Date` value or an `Array` value containing a
  `Date and time`/`BSON Date` value. Leave the field absent or set to a
  value like `null` to disable expirations on a per-document basis.

- TTL is designed to minimize impact on other database activities. Deletions
  driven by TTL are treated with a lower priority. Other strategies are
  also in place to smooth out traffic spikes from TTL-driven deletes.

### TTL fields and indexes

A TTL field can be indexed or unindexed. However, because a TTL field is a
timestamp, indexing the field can affect performance at higher traffic rates.
Indexing a timestamp field can create
hotspots which is against best practices. Hotspots are
high read, write, and delete rates to a narrow document range.

## Permissions

The principal configuring a TTL policy requires the following permission in the
project:

- Viewing TTL policies requires the `datastore.indexes.list` and `datastore.indexes.get` permissions.
- Modifying TTL policies requires the `datastore.indexes.update` permission.
- Checking the status of TTL operations requires `datastore.operations.list` and `datastore.operations.get`.

For roles that assign these permissions, see [Cloud Firestore Identity and Access Management roles](https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/enterprise/security/iam#predefined_roles).

## Before you begin

Before you use the gcloud CLI to manage TTL policies, use the
[`gcloud components update`](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference/components/update)
command to update components to the latest available version:  

    gcloud components update

## Create a TTL policy

When you create a TTL policy, you designate a document field as the expiration
time for documents in a collection.

TTL uses a specified field to identify documents that are eligible for deletion.
The TTL field must be set to either a `Timestamp`/`BSON Date` value or an `Array` value
containing a `Timestamp`/`BSON Date` value. You can select a field that
already exists or you can designate a field that you plan to add later.
| **Note:** Some TTL policies created before February 2026 don't apply to `Timestamp`/`BSON Date` values inside of `Array` values. To update the policy to apply to `Array` values, disable and re-enable the policy.

Consider the following before you set the TTL field value:

- The TTL field value can be a time in the future, now, or in the past. If the value is a time
  in the past, the document is immediately eligible for deletion. For example, you
  might create a TTL policy with the field `expireAt`, which you then add to
  existing documents.

- Using any other data type or not setting the TTL field value will disable the TTL for the individual document.

To create a TTL policy, follow these steps:  

### Google Cloud Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the **Databases** page.

   [Go to Databases](https://console.cloud.google.com/firestore/databases)
2. Select the required database from the list of databases.

3. In the navigation menu, click **Time-to-live**.

4. Click **Create Policy**.

5. Enter a collection name and a timestamp field name.

6. Click **Create**.

The console returns to the **Time-to-live** page. If the operation
successfully starts, the page adds an entry to the TTL policies table. On
failure, the page displays an error message.

### gcloud


1. [Install](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install) and [initialize](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/initializing) the gcloud CLI CLI.

2. Use the [`firestore fields ttls
   update`](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference/firestore/fields/ttls/update)
   command to configure a TTL policy. Add the `--async` flag to prevent the
   gcloud CLI from waiting for the operation to complete.

   ```
    gcloud firestore fields ttls update
   ttl_field --collection-group=collection_name
   --enable-ttl 
   ```

### TTL policy enablement duration

Even on an empty database, it can take ten minutes or more to enable a TTL
policy. Once you start an operation, closing the terminal does not cancel the
operation.

## View TTL policies

To view TTL policies and their statuses, follow these steps:  

### Google Cloud Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the **Databases** page.

   [Go to Databases](https://console.cloud.google.com/firestore/databases)
2. Select the required database from the list of databases.

3. In the navigation menu, click **Time-to-live**.

The console lists TTL policies for your database and includes each policy's
status.

### gcloud


1. [Install](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install) and [initialize](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/initializing) the gcloud CLI CLI.

2. Use the
   [`firestore fields ttls list`](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference/firestore/fields/ttls/list)
   command to configure a TTL policy. The following command lists all TTL
   policies.

   ```
   gcloud firestore fields ttls list
   ```

   To list TTL policies under a specific collection, use the following:  

   ```
   gcloud firestore fields ttls list  --collection-group=collection_name
   ```

### View operation details

You can use the gcloud CLI to view more details about a TTL policy
that is in the `CREATING` state.

Use the [`operations list`](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference/firestore/operations/list) command to see all running and
recently completed operations:  

```
gcloud firestore operations list
```

The response includes an estimate of the operation's progress.

## Disable a TTL policy

To disable a TTL policy, follow these steps:  

### Google Cloud Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the **Databases** page.

   [Go to Databases](https://console.cloud.google.com/firestore/databases)
2. Select the required database from the list of databases.

3. In the navigation menu, click **Time-to-live**.

4. In the TTL policy table, find the row for the TTL policy. Within this
   table row, click the **Delete** (trashcan) button.

5. Confirm by clicking **Delete**.

The console returns to the **Time-to-live** page. On success,
Cloud Firestore removes the TTL policy from the table.

### gcloud


1. [Install](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install) and [initialize](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/initializing) the gcloud CLI CLI.

2. Use the
   [`firestore fields ttls update`](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference/firestore/fields/ttls/update)
   command to configure a TTL policy. Add the `--async` flag to prevent the
   gcloud CLI from waiting for the operation to complete.

   ```
   gcloud firestore fields ttls update ttl_field --collection-group=collection_name --disable-ttl
   ```

## Monitor TTL deletions

You can use Cloud Monitoring to view metrics about TTL-driven deletions.
Cloud Firestore provides the following metrics for TTL:

| Metric type | Metric name | Metric description |
|---|---|---|
| firestore.googleapis.com/document/ttl_deletion_count | Time to live deletion count | Total count of documents deleted by TTL policies. |
| firestore.googleapis.com/document/ttl_expiration_to_deletion_delays | Time to live expiration to deletion delays | Time elapsed between when a document expired under a TTL policy and when it was actually deleted. |

To set up a dashboard with Cloud Firestore metrics, see
[manage custom dashboard](https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/charts/dashboards) and
[add dashboard widgets](https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/charts).