Help Center/ Object Storage Service/ FAQs/ How Do I Use Lifecycle Management?/ Why Does My Lifecycle Rule Not Take Effect?
Updated on 2026-09-14 GMT+08:00
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Why Does My Lifecycle Rule Not Take Effect?

If your lifecycle rule does not take effect, perform the following steps:

  1. Check whether your lifecycle rule has been created for more than 24 hours.

    It usually takes 24 hours at most for the actions in a lifecycle rule to complete. Considering the start time of the rule, there may be a delay in transitioning storage classes or deleting expired objects, but the total completion time will not exceed 48 hours.

    Assume an object was uploaded at 09:00 on June 1, 2024 (UTC). OBS would calculate its lifecycle from 00:00 on June 2, 2024 (UTC). If the object was configured to be deleted one day later, it would be deleted at 00:00 on June 3, 2024 (UTC). The execution latency does not exceed 24 hours and the deletion would be completed at 00:00 on June 4, 2024 (UTC).

  2. Check whether the prefix or tag filter criteria in the rule are correctly configured.

    Example:

    • To configure the rule to delete all objects in the test folder when they expire, set the prefix to test/ instead of test. If the prefix is set to test, objects whose names start with test in the root directory of the bucket will be deleted when they expire.
    • If the rule is configured to delete objects with the tag key testobs and tag value testvalue when they expire, ensure that both the tag key and tag value are correctly specified.
  3. Check whether the last modification time of the file meets the time requirement for the rule to take effect.

    After an object is last updated, OBS starts to calculate its lifecycle at the next 00:00 (UTC). Assume an object was uploaded at 09:00 on June 1, 2024 (UTC). OBS would calculate its lifecycle from 00:00 on June 2, 2024 (UTC). If the object was configured to be deleted one day later, it would be deleted at 00:00 on June 3, 2024 (UTC). If you check whether the object has been deleted before 00:00 on June 3, 2024 (UTC), you may mistakenly consider that the rule has not taken effect because the object has not been deleted yet.