--- schema_version: "1" id: f84cae688215a51006f7803fd20f2a0307888f2d203f3bbac3008f13ef585e16 title: Enable and Modify Data Extension Retention Policies collection: admin version: current locale: en-us portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/mktg/264-0-0/mc_cab_manage_data_retention_policy.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=mktg.mc_cab_manage_data_retention_policy.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: 75e169a8594e4e191bcb354b9116783dc2b5e35505a66d227baf6f67064eb398 description: Manage data retention policies for data extensions in Contact Builder. Use these policies to manage high-volume temporary data, comply with data retention policies, and maintain clean customer profiles by removing outdated data. products: - Marketing - Marketing Cloud Engagement release: "264" --- # Enable and Modify Data Extension Retention Policies Manage data retention policies for data extensions in Contact Builder. Use these policies to manage high-volume temporary data, comply with data retention policies, and maintain clean customer profiles by removing outdated data. 1. On the Data Extensions tab in Contact Builder, select the data extension. 2. In the Data Retention section, click **Edit**. 3. To enable the retention settings, click **On** next to Retention Setting. 4. In the Delete section, select the scope of the data retention policy.

Individual Records	Apply the data retention policy to each record individually, and delete individual records when the retention period elapses. For example, if you select this option with a retention period of 30 days, each record in the data extension is deleted 30 days after it’s added to the data extension.
All records and data extensions	Apply the retention policy to the data extension itself. This option deletes the data extension and all the data within it after the retention period elapses.
All records	Apply the retention policy to all records in the data extension, and delete all of the records when the retention period elapses. This option leaves the data extension itself intact but empty.

To reset the retention period when data is imported to the data extension, select **Reset period on import**. This option is available only if you specify a number of days for the retention period, rather than selecting a date. 5. In the Retention Period section, specify a retention period to apply to the data extension. You can specify a number of days, weeks, months, or years. Alternatively, you can select a specific date. 6. Save your work.