Deleting a Vault in Amazon Glacier - Amazon Glacier
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

This page is only for existing customers of the Amazon Glacier service using Vaults and the original REST API from 2012.

If you're looking for archival storage solutions, we recommend using the Amazon Glacier storage classes in Amazon S3, S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive. To learn more about these storage options, see Amazon Glacier storage classes.

Amazon Glacier (original standalone vault-based service) will no longer accept new customers starting December 15, 2025, with no impact to existing customers. Amazon Glacier is a standalone service with its own APIs that stores data in vaults and is distinct from Amazon S3 and the Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes. Your existing data will remain secure and accessible in Amazon Glacier indefinitely. No migration is required. For low-cost, long-term archival storage, Amazon recommends the Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes, which deliver a superior customer experience with S3 bucket-based APIs, full Amazon Web Services Region availability, lower costs, and Amazon service integration. If you want enhanced capabilities, consider migrating to Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes by using our Amazon Solutions Guidance for transferring data from Amazon Glacier vaults to Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes.

Deleting a Vault in Amazon Glacier

Amazon Glacier (Amazon Glacier) deletes a vault only if there are no archives in the vault as of the last inventory it computed and there have been no writes to the vault since the last inventory. For information about deleting archives, see Deleting an Archive in Amazon Glacier. For information about downloading a vault inventory, Downloading a Vault Inventory in Amazon Glacier.

Note

Amazon Glacier prepares an inventory for each vault periodically, every 24 hours. Because the inventory might not reflect the latest information, Amazon Glacier ensures the vault is indeed empty by checking if there were any write operations since the last vault inventory.

Note

For automated deletion of vault archives, see Automated deletion of vault archives in Amazon S3 Glacier.

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