mc retention clear

Syntax

The mc retention clear command removes the Write-Once Read-Many (WORM) locking settings for an object or object(s) in a bucket. You can also remove the default object lock settings for a bucket.

To change the retention status of an object under legal hold, use mc legalhold clear.

The following command removes the default object lock configuration for the mydata bucket on the myminio MinIO deployment:

mc retention clear --default myminio/mydata

The command has the following syntax:

mc [GLOBALFLAGS] retention clear           \
                 [--default]               \
                 [--recursive]             \
                 [--rewind "string"]       \
                 [--version-id "string"]*  \
                 [--versions]              \
                 ALIAS

Brackets [] indicate optional parameters.
Parameters sharing a line are mutually dependent.
Parameters separated using the pipe | operator are mutually exclusive.

Copy the example to a text editor and modify as-needed before running the command in the terminal/shell.

mc retention clear --version-id is mutually exclusive with multiple other parameters. See the reference documentation for more information.

Parameters

`ALIAS`

mc-cmd

Required

The full path to the object or objects for which to clear the object lock configuration. Specify the alias of a configured S3-compatible service as the prefix to the ALIAS bucket path. For example:

mc retention clear play/mybucket/object.txt

If the ALIAS specifies a bucket or bucket prefix, include
--recursive to clear the object lock settings to the bucket contents.
If the ALIAS bucket has versioning enabled,
mc retention clear by default applies to only the latest object version. Use --version-id or --versions to clear the object lock settings for a specific version or for all versions of the object.

`--default`

mc-cmd

Optional

Clears the default object lock settings for the bucket specified to ALIAS.

If specifying --default, mc retention clear ignores all other flags.

`--recursive, r`

mc-cmd

Optional

Recursively clears the object lock settings for all objects in the specified ALIAS path.

Mutually exclusive with --version-id.

`--rewind`

mc-cmd

Optional

Directs mc retention clear to operate only on the object version(s) that existed at specified point-in-time.

To rewind to a specific date in the past, specify the date as an ISO8601-formatted timestamp. For example: --rewind "2020.03.24T10:00".
To rewind a duration in time, specify the duration as a string in #d#hh#mm#ss format. For example: --rewind "1d2hh3mm4ss".

--rewind requires that the specified ALIAS be an S3-compatible service that supports Bucket Versioning. For MinIO deployments, use mc version to enable or disable bucket versioning.

`--version-id, vid`

mc-cmd

Optional

Directs mc retention clear to operate only on the specified object version.

--version-id requires that the specified ALIAS be an S3-compatible service that supports Bucket Versioning. For MinIO deployments, use mc version to enable or disable bucket versioning.

Mutually exclusive with any of the following flags:

`--versions`

mc-cmd

Optional

Directs mc retention clear to operate on all object versions that exist in the bucket.

--versions requires that the specified ALIAS be an S3-compatible service that supports Bucket Versioning. For MinIO deployments, use mc version to enable or disable bucket versioning.

Use --versions and --rewind together to remove the retention settings from all object versions that existed at a specific point-in-time.

Global Flags

This command supports any of the global flags.

Examples

Clear Object Lock Settings for an Object or Object(s)

mc retention clear ALIAS/PATH

Replace ALIAS with the alias of a configured S3-compatible host.
Replace PATH with the path to the object.

Use mc retention clear with --recursive to clear the retention settings from all objects in a bucket:

mc retention clear --recursive ALIAS/PATH

Replace ALIAS with the alias of a configured S3-compatible host.
Replace PATH with the path to the bucket.

The bucket must have object locking enabled to use this command. You can only enable object locking when creating a bucket. See mc mb --with-lock for more information on creating buckets with object locking enabled.

S3 Compatibility

The mc commandline tool is built for compatibility with the AWS S3 API and is tested with MinIO and AWS S3 for expected functionality and behavior.

MinIO provides no guarantees for other S3-compatible services, as their S3 API implementation is unknown and therefore unsupported. While mc commands may work as documented, any such usage is at your own risk.

Last modified August 2, 2026: init commit (8338d5b)