DeletionPolicy Attribute

With the DeletionPolicy attribute you can preserve or (in some cases) backup a resource when its stack is deleted. You specify a DeletionPolicy attribute for each resource that you want to control. If a resource has no DeletionPolicy attribute, AWS CloudFormation deletes the resource by default.

To keep a resource when its stack is deleted, specify Retain for that resource. You can use retain for any resource. For example, you can retain a nested stack, S3 bucket, or EC2 instance so that you can continue to use or modify those resources after you delete their stacks.

Note

If you want to modify resources outside of AWS CloudFormation, use a retain policy and then delete the stack. Otherwise, your resources might get out of sync with your AWS CloudFormation template and cause stack errors.

For resources that support snapshots, such as AWS::RDS::DBInstance and AWS::EC2::Volume, you can specify Snapshot to have AWS CloudFormation create a snapshot before deleting the resource.

The following snippet contains an Amazon S3 bucket resource with a Retain deletion policy. When this stack is deleted, AWS CloudFormation leaves the bucket without deleting it.

JSON

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{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion" : "2010-09-09",
  "Resources" : {
    "myS3Bucket" : {
      "Type" : "AWS::S3::Bucket",
      "DeletionPolicy" : "Retain"
    }
  }
}

YAML

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AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Resources:
  myS3Bucket:
    Type: AWS::S3::Bucket
    DeletionPolicy: Retain

DeletionPolicy Options

Delete: AWS CloudFormation deletes the resource and all its content if applicable during stack deletion. You can add this deletion policy to any resource type. By default, if you don't specify a DeletionPolicy, AWS CloudFormation deletes your resources.

Note

For Amazon S3 buckets, you must delete all objects in the bucket for deletion to succeed.
Retain: AWS CloudFormation keeps the resource without deleting the resource or its contents when its stack is deleted. You can add this deletion policy to any resource type. Note that when AWS CloudFormation completes the stack deletion, the stack will be in Delete_Complete state; however, resources that are retained continue to exist and continue to incur applicable charges until you delete those resources.
Snapshot: For resources that support snapshots (AWS::EC2::Volume, AWS::ElastiCache::CacheCluster, AWS::ElastiCache::ReplicationGroup, AWS::RDS::DBInstance, AWS::RDS::DBCluster, and AWS::Redshift::Cluster), AWS CloudFormation creates a snapshot for the resource before deleting it. Note that when AWS CloudFormation completes the stack deletion, the stack will be in the Delete_Complete state; however, the snapshots that are created with this policy continue to exist and continue to incur applicable charges until you delete those snapshots.

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