---
title: Add a data retention policy | Tiger Data Docs
description: Create a data retention policy to automatically drop historical data from your hypertables when it reaches a certain age
---

Retention policies drop entire chunks once their time range falls outside your window, which is cheaper than deleting millions of rows one by one. TimescaleDB schedules a background job to apply the policy for you.

## Add a data retention policy

Add a data retention policy by using the [`add_retention_policy`](/docs/reference/timescaledb/data-retention/add_retention_policy/index.md) function.

1. **Choose your hypertable and retention interval**

   Decide how long you want to keep data before dropping it. In this example, the hypertable named `conditions` retains the data for 24 hours.

2. **Call `add_retention_policy`**

   ```
   SELECT add_retention_policy('conditions', INTERVAL '24 hours');
   ```

Note

A data retention policy only allows you to drop chunks based on how far they are in the past. To drop chunks based on how far they are in the future, [manually drop chunks](/docs/learn/data-lifecycle/data-retention/manually-drop-chunks/index.md).

## Remove a data retention policy

Remove an existing data retention policy by using the [`remove_retention_policy`](/docs/reference/timescaledb/data-retention/remove_retention_policy/index.md) function. Pass it the name of the hypertable to remove the policy from.

```
SELECT remove_retention_policy('conditions');
```

## See scheduled data retention jobs

To see your scheduled data retention jobs and their job statistics, query the [`timescaledb_information.jobs`](/docs/reference/timescaledb/informational-views/jobs/index.md) and [`timescaledb_information.job_stats`](/docs/reference/timescaledb/informational-views/job_stats/index.md) tables. For example:

```
SELECT j.hypertable_name,
       j.job_id,
       config,
       schedule_interval,
       job_status,
       last_run_status,
       last_run_started_at,
       js.next_start,
       total_runs,
       total_successes,
       total_failures
  FROM timescaledb_information.jobs j
  JOIN timescaledb_information.job_stats js
    ON j.job_id = js.job_id
  WHERE j.proc_name = 'policy_retention';
```

The results look like this:

```
-[ RECORD 1 ]-------+-----------------------------------------------
hypertable_name     | conditions
job_id              | 1000
config              | {"drop_after": "5 years", "hypertable_id": 14}
schedule_interval   | 1 day
job_status          | Scheduled
last_run_status     | Success
last_run_started_at | 2022-05-19 16:15:11.200109+00
next_start          | 2022-05-20 16:15:11.243531+00
total_runs          | 1
total_successes     | 1
total_failures      | 0
```