# Long-Retained Azure Snapshot

Canonical: https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/inefficiencies/long-retained-azure-snapshot

[Cloud Efficiency Hub](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub) 

# Long-Retained Azure Snapshot

## Explanation

Snapshots are often created for short-term protection before changes to a VM or disk, but many remain in the environment far beyond their intended lifespan. Over time, this leads to an accumulation of snapshots that are no longer associated with any active resource or retained for operational need.Since Azure does not enforce automatic expiration or lifecycle policies for snapshots, they can persist indefinitely and continue to incur monthly storage charges. This inefficiency is especially common in development environments, migration efforts, or manual backup workflows that lack centralized cleanup.Snapshots older than 30-90 days, especially those not tied to a documented backup strategy or workload, are strong candidates for review and removal.

## Relevant Billing Model

- Snapshots are billed based on the amount of data stored (per GB/month)

- Charges accrue regardless of whether the snapshot is used or linked to an active disk

- Incremental snapshots are more space-efficient but still incur storage cost

## Detection

- List all snapshots in the subscription

- Filter for snapshots not associated with any currently active managed disk

- Review creation timestamps to identify snapshots older than a defined threshold (e.g., 30 or 90 days)

- Cross-reference with project timelines, VM decommissioning dates, or change records to validate relevance

- Use Azure Resource Graph or scripting to automate identification at scale

## Remediation

- Manually review long-retained snapshots with application or infrastructure owners

- Delete snapshots no longer needed for recovery, rollback, or compliance retention

- Adopt tagging standards to track purpose, owner, and expected retention period at time of snapshot creation

- Incorporate snapshot lifecycle reviews into infrastructure decommissioning or backup policy audits

## Relevant Documentation

- [Azure Snapshot Pricing](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/managed-disks//%22)

- [Azure Snapshot Overview](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-snapshots/)

[Submit Feedback](https://hub.pointfive.co/inefficiencies/long-retained-azure-snapshot)

## At a glance

Reference

CER-0021

Cloud provider

Azure

Service

Azure Snapshots

Category

[Storage](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/service-category/storage)

Inefficiency type

Retained Unused Resource

## Contributed by

- Anderson Oliveira 

### Anderson Oliveira

FinOps Account Manager @ CloudZero

[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anderson-c-oliveira/)

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Source: the public page above. Product screenshots and illustrative interfaces are examples, not live customer data.