---
description: Automatically remove old Apache Iceberg table snapshots to improve performance and reduce storage costs
title: R2 Data Catalog now supports automatic snapshot expiration
image: https://developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/post/2025-12-18-r2-data-catalog-snapshot-expiration/og.png?v=93978511977ec7c8
---

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December 18, 2025

## R2 Data Catalog now supports automatic snapshot expiration

[Basin Catalog](https://developers.cloudflare.com/basin-catalog/) [Basin](https://developers.cloudflare.com/basin/) [R2](https://developers.cloudflare.com/r2/)

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[R2 Data Catalog](https://developers.cloudflare.com/basin-catalog/) now supports automatic snapshot expiration for Apache Iceberg tables.

In Apache Iceberg, a snapshot is metadata that represents the state of a table at a given point in time. Every mutation creates a new snapshot which enable powerful features like time travel queries and rollback capabilities but will accumulate over time.

Without regular cleanup, these accumulated snapshots can lead to:

- Metadata overhead
- Slower table operations
- Increased storage costs.

Snapshot expiration in R2 Data Catalog automatically removes old table snapshots based on your configured retention policy, improving performance and storage costs.

```bash
# Enable catalog-level snapshot expiration
# Expire snapshots older than 7 days, always retain at least 10 recent snapshots
npx wrangler r2 bucket catalog snapshot-expiration enable my-bucket \
  --older-than-days 7 \
  --retain-last 10
```

Snapshot expiration uses two parameters to determine which snapshots to remove:

- `--older-than-days`: age threshold in days
- `--retain-last`: minimum snapshot count to retain

Both conditions must be met before a snapshot is expired, ensuring you always retain recent snapshots even if they exceed the age threshold.

This feature complements [automatic compaction](https://developers.cloudflare.com/basin-catalog/table-maintenance/), which optimizes query performance by combining small data files into larger ones. Together, these automatic maintenance operations keep your Iceberg tables performant and cost-efficient without manual intervention.

For more information, refer to [Table maintenance](https://developers.cloudflare.com/basin-catalog/table-maintenance/) or [Manage catalogs](https://developers.cloudflare.com/basin-catalog/manage-catalogs/).

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