When restoring a snapshot that contains indices managed by Index Lifecycle Management, the lifecycle will automatically continue to execute after the snapshot is restored. Notably, the min_age is relative to the original creation or rollover of the index, rather than when the index was restored. For example, a monthly index that is restored partway through its lifecycle after an accidental deletion will be continue through its lifecycle as expected: The index will be shrunk, reallocated to different nodes, or deleted on the same schedule whether or not it has been restored from a snapshot.

However, there may be cases where you need to restore an index from a snapshot, but do not want it to automatically continue through its lifecycle, particularly if the index would rapidly progress through lifecycle phases due to its age. For example, you may wish to add or update documents in an index before it is marked read only or shrunk, or prevent an index from automatically being deleted.

To stop lifecycle policy execution on an index restored from a snapshot, before restoring the snapshot, lifecycle policy execution can be paused to allow the policy to be removed.

For example, the following workflow can be used in the above situation to prevent the execution of the lifecycle policy for an index: