Deleting a cluster snapshot - Amazon DocumentDB
This documentation is a draft for private preview for regions in the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Documentation content will continue to evolve. Published: January 2, 2026.

Deleting a cluster snapshot

A manual snapshot is a full backup that is deleted only when you manually delete it using the AWS Management Console or AWS CLI. You cannot manually delete an automatic snapshot because automatic snapshots are deleted only when the snapshot's retention period expires or you delete the snapshot's cluster.

Using the AWS Management Console

To delete a manual cluster snapshot using the AWS Management Console, complete the following steps.

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console, and open the Amazon DocumentDB console at https://eusc-de-east-1.console.amazonaws-eusc.eu/docdb.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots.

    Tip

    If you don't see the navigation pane on the left side of your screen, choose the menu icon (Hamburger menu icon with three horizontal lines.) in the upper-left corner of the page.

  3. In the list of snapshots, choose the button to the left of the snapshot that you want to delete. The snapshot's type must be manual.

    1. You can verify that that the snapshot's type is manual by checking if it is listed as manual or automatic under the Type column.

  4. From the Actions menu, choose Delete. If the Delete option is unavailable, you probably chose an automatic snapshot.

  5. On the delete confirmation screen, to delete the snapshot, choose Delete. To keep the snapshot, choose Cancel.

Using the AWS CLI

An Amazon DocumentDB manual cluster snapshot is a full backup that you can manually delete using the AWS CLI. You cannot manually delete an automatic snapshot.

To delete a manual cluster snapshot using the AWS CLI, use the delete-db-cluster-snapshot operation with the following parameters.

Parameters

  • --db-cluster-snapshot-identifier — Required. The name of the manual snapshot to delete.

The following example deletes the cluster snapshot sample-cluster-snapshot.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws docdb delete-db-cluster-snapshot \
    --db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot

For Windows:

aws docdb delete-db-cluster-snapshot ^
    --db-cluster-snapshot-identifier sample-cluster-snapshot

Output from this operation lists the details of the cluster snapshot you deleted.