Automatic deletion of Power Platform environments

Automated processes periodically identify, disable, and eventually delete inactive Power Platform environments to optimize storage capacity. An environment may be deleted because it's in a tenant with an expired subscription or because it's not being used. In either case, there are actions you can take to prevent the environment from being deleted.

View the status of your environments

1. Sign in as an admin to the Power Platform admin center.

2. Select Environments.

3. Look for environments with an Inactive status.

   

Environments in a tenant with an expired subscription

If the subscription for a tenant has expired or been deprovisioned, all the environments in the tenant are marked for deactivation and eventual deletion. When an environment is marked for cleanup, the system sends an email notification to all admins in your organization 14 days, 7 days, and 1 day before the environment is disabled. If no action is taken, the environment is deleted 10 days after the final email is sent.

Only production and sandbox environments are affected by the subscription-based automatic cleanup. Learn about automatic deletion of inactive Microsoft Dataverse for Teams environments.

Actions you can take if your subscription has expired

Renew or purchase licenses before the environments are deleted. Be sure to purchase enough licenses and capacity to cover all the production environments in your tenant. The environments are automatically re-enabled within 24 hours.

If an environment has already been deleted, you have a limited window of time to recover it.

Inactivity-based cleanup

A cleanup mechanism in Power Platform automatically removes environments that aren't being used. Only developer and Dataverse for Teams environments are affected by the activity-based automatic cleanup.

Developer environments

A cleanup mechanism in Power Platform automatically removes developer environments that aren't being used based on the following schedule. After 30 days of inactivity, environments are automatically disabled. If, after 15 days, the environment is not re-enabled, the environment is deleted. You have seven days to recover the environment once it has been deleted.

As part of this cleanup process, you can expect the following:

• Admins receive email notifications which warn of upcoming disablement or deletion.
• Any activity triggered on the environment or re-enabling the environment will reset the inactivity period.
• Environments are deleted 15 days after being disabled due to inactivity.

Timeline for unused developer environments

The environment's administrators and the user who created the environment are notified by email according to the schedule described in the following table.

A warning message appears on the Environments list page and Environment page when an environment is disabled.

Definition of user activity

Power Platform calculates a single measure of inactivity for each environment. The measure accounts for all activity by users, makers, and admins across Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Platform, Microsoft Copilot Studio, and Dataverse.

Most create, read, update, and delete operations on the environment and its resources—that a user, maker, or admin initiates—are considered activity. Visits to the home page, solution explorer, and Power Apps or Power Automate designer aren't considered activity.

Here are some examples of the types of actions that are considered as activity:

• User activity: Launch an app, launch the environment URL, execute a flow (whether automatic or not), or chat with a Microsoft Copilot Studio bot.
• Maker activity: Create, update, or delete an app, flow (both desktop and cloud flows), Microsoft Copilot Studio bot, or custom connector.
• Admin activity: Trigger an environment operation such as copy, restore, or reset.

Trigger activity, re-enable, and recover an environment

By default, administrators have 15 days to re-enable an environment. If the environment remains disabled for 15 days, it's automatically deleted. Administrators have seven days to recover a deleted environment.

Trigger activity in an inactive environment

1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.
2. Select Environments, and then select the inactive environment.
3. On the Environment page, select Trigger environment activity.

Re-enable a disabled environment

1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.
2. Select Environments, and then select the disabled environment.
3. On the Environment page, select Re-enable environment.

Recover a deleted environment

1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.
2. Select Environments, and then select Recover deleted environments.
3. Select an environment to recover, and then select Recover.

Learn more about recovering an environment.

See also

Back up and restore environments
Automatic deletion of inactive Microsoft Dataverse for Teams environments
Licensing overview for Microsoft Power Platform
Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate licensing guide