> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.release.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.release.com/reference-documentation/environment-expiration.md).

# Environment expiration

How to determine and modify the life span of an ephemeral environment.

{% hint style="info" %}
Some plans do not allow expiration values to be set or changed, and some roles in an account cannot set or change expiration values. Contact your account owner or Release support if you have any questions about expiration policies, changes allowed, and features enabled for your role and your account.
{% endhint %}

Permanent environments live on forever, but ephemeral environments are meant to be temporary. By default, ephemeral environments will last for 3 days in Release. If you need your environments to last longer, you can upgrade to a Premium plan and gain access to permanent environments or override the default expiration to extend the life span of an environment.

For all plans, you can extend the life of an environment by clicking the **Actions** dropdown and selecting **Extend** on the Environment Details screen, which will reset the expiration for up to 7 days. Release will send you a notification email 24 hours before your environment expires to notify you that it will expire.

![Extend an ephemeral environment](https://585411240-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-M1neGLLQ0sDXeK6ooSo%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-0ec495fbb3369e39ee893b3831734d971da36805%2Fextend.png?alt=media)

With a Premium plan, you have greater control over ephemeral environment expiration. In the global Account Settings, you can switch the ["Destroy ephemeral environments after no activity"](https://docs.releaseapp.io/reference-guide/account-settings/account-info#destroy-ephemeral-environments-after-no-activity) feature to "Off", which makes your ephemeral environments long-lived spaces that need to be manually deleted.

![Extend an ephemeral environment](https://585411240-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-M1neGLLQ0sDXeK6ooSo%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-b0e298bcfb70bf6d80ccef0849cee33a74e96bca%2Fdestroy-switch.png?alt=media)

However, we don't recommend this for most customers, as your clusters or environment quotas can quickly become filled with stale environments. Instead, you can leave this setting on and specify how many days an ephemeral environment will last before it is destroyed. Most customers find that 7-14 days is a good ephemeral environment life span for retention and space.

![Extend an ephemeral environment](https://585411240-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-M1neGLLQ0sDXeK6ooSo%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-acb8d69de3a5c6cda5fb0c75b2688156dec1f44d%2Fexpiration-time.png?alt=media)


---

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