Help Center/ Relational Database Service_RDS for PostgreSQL/ User Guide/ Instance Management/ Instance Lifecycle/ Enabling or Disabling Deletion Protection for an Instance
Updated on 2026-06-15 GMT+08:00
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Enabling or Disabling Deletion Protection for an Instance

Scenarios

Enabling deletion protection prevents instances from being accidentally deleted, maintaining service availability and mitigating the risk of data loss. To prevent your instance from being deleted by mistake, you can enable deletion protection. If deletion protection is no longer needed, disable it.

Instances with deletion protection enabled cannot be deleted. To delete such an instance, disable deletion protection first (using an account that has the permission to disable this function).

How It Works

A flag has been added to the instance attributes to indicate the deletion protection status of the current instance. This configuration is stored in the extended field of the instance table. When deletion protection is enabled, the flag is set to TRUE. When deletion protection is disabled, the flag is set to FALSE.

Prerequisites

The IAM account you use must be assigned the rds:instance:switchDeletionProtection action.

Constraints

This function is unavailable for instances that are being created, being deleted, or already deleted.

Precautions

  • The deletion protection status of the standby instance is the same as that of the primary instance.
  • By default, deletion protection is disabled during instance creation. Created instances are not protected and can be deleted by users with the DELETE privilege. To protect your instance against deletion, follow the instructions in this section.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the RDS console.
  2. Click in the upper left corner and select a region.
  3. Click the primary instance name to go to the Summary page.
  4. In the Instance Information area, find the Deletion Protection field and check whether it is enabled for the instance.

    Figure 1 Checking whether deletion protection is enabled

  1. Log in to the RDS console.
  2. Click in the upper left corner and select a region.
  3. Click the primary instance name to go to the Summary page.
  4. In the Instance Information area, find the Deletion Protection field and click Configure.
  5. In the displayed dialog box, select the Deletion Protection check box and click OK.

    Figure 2 Enabling deletion protection

  1. Log in to the RDS console.
  2. Click in the upper left corner and select a region.
  3. Click the primary instance name to go to the Summary page.
  4. In the Instance Information area, find the Deletion Protection field and click Configure.
  5. In the displayed dialog box, deselect the Deletion Protection check box and click OK.

    Figure 3 Disabling deletion protection

Parent Topic: Instance Lifecycle