Documentation

Data retention in InfluxDB Cloud Serverless

InfluxDB Cloud Serverless enforces bucket retention periods at query time. Any points with timestamps beyond a bucket’s retention period are filtered out of query results, even though the data may still exist.

Bucket retention period

A bucket retention period is the duration of time that a bucket retains data. Retention periods are designed to automatically delete expired data and optimize storage without any user intervention.

Retention periods can be as short as an hour or infinite. Points in a bucket with timestamps beyond the defined retention period (relative to now) are not queryable, but may still exist in storage until fully deleted.

View bucket retention periods

Use the influx bucket list command to view your buckets’ retention periods.

When does data actually get deleted?

InfluxDB routinely deletes Parquet files containing only expired data. InfluxDB retains expired Parquet files for at least 100 days for disaster recovery. After the disaster recovery period, expired Parquet files are permanently deleted and can’t be recovered.


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New in InfluxDB 3.5

Key enhancements in InfluxDB 3.5 and the InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3.

See the Blog Post

InfluxDB 3.5 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, introducing custom plugin repository support, enhanced operational visibility with queryable CLI parameters and manual node management, stronger security controls, and general performance improvements.

InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3 brings powerful new capabilities including Dashboards (beta) for saving and organizing your favorite queries, and cache querying for instant access to Last Value and Distinct Value caches—making Explorer a more comprehensive workspace for time series monitoring and analysis.

For more information, check out:

InfluxDB Docker latest tag changing to InfluxDB 3 Core

On February 3, 2026, the latest tag for InfluxDB Docker images will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments.

If using Docker to install and run InfluxDB, the latest tag will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments. For example, if using Docker to run InfluxDB v2, replace the latest version tag with a specific version tag in your Docker pull command–for example:

docker pull influxdb:2

InfluxDB Cloud Serverless