Does Azure Automatically Delete Old Backups and Snapshots Based on Retention Policy?

Question

I have configured backup for Azure VMs, and during the backup configuration, Azure automatically created a resource group to store instant recovery points.

My question is: If my backup policy retains instant recovery points for 1 day and daily backup points for 7 days, will the snapshot inside this Azure-created resource group be automatically deleted after 1 day? I expected it to be removed as per the policy, but even after more than a day, it has not been deleted from the automatically created resource group, even though the expiry date in the vault showed yesterday.

Additionally, what happens if I apply a lock on all resource groups? Will the instant recovery snapshots still be automatically deleted as expected?

In short, I want to understand how Azure automatically deletes old backups and snapshots. Do we need to manually delete old backups, or does Azure handle it automatically?
how my policy will work ??

in the image you can see that snapshot expire at 2/13/2025 but it still available in resource group and curremt date is 2/14/2025 even i have disable soft delete

Answer 1

Yes, Azure does automatically delete old backups and snapshots based on the retention policy you set. The retention policy specifies how long backups and snapshots are kept before they are deleted. This helps manage storage costs and ensures that only necessary backups are retained.

However, if a backup or snapshot is locked, it won't be deleted automatically. Locks in Azure are used to prevent accidental deletion or modification of critical resources3. There are two types of locks:

Read-only Lock: Prevents modification or deletion but allows reading.

CanNotDelete Lock: Prevents deletion but allows modification.

To delete a locked backup or snapshot, you'll need to first remove the lock.