Manage indices in Kibana

Practicing good index management ensures your data is stored efficiently and cost-effectively. In Kibana, the Index Management page is where you manage storage resources across your cluster, including indices, data streams, index and component templates, and enrich policies. Index-specific actions are covered in Index operations reference.

Tip

All operations available on the Index Management page can also be performed using the Elasticsearch REST API. Refer to Manage data from the command line for examples, or browse the Elasticsearch index APIs directly.

Required permissions

The following security privileges are required to manage indices in Kibana:

The monitor cluster privilege to access Kibana's Index Management features.
The view_index_metadata and manage index privileges to view a data stream or index's data.
The manage_index_templates cluster privilege to manage index templates.

To add these privileges, go to Stack Management > Security > Roles or use the Create or update roles API.

In Elastic Cloud Serverless, permissions are managed through project custom roles instead of Stack Management > Security > Roles. To grant access to Index Management, configure the required Elasticsearch and Kibana privileges in a custom role. For step-by-step guidance, refer to Serverless project custom roles.

Navigate the Index Management page

To open the Index Management page, use the navigation menu or the global search field.

To access details and perform operations on indices:
- For a single index, click the index name to drill down into the index overview, mappings, and settings. From this view, you can navigate to Discover to further explore the documents in the index.
- For multiple indices, select their checkboxes and then open the Manage indices menu.
Turn on Include hidden indices to view the full set of indices, including backing indices for data streams.
To filter the list of indices, use the search bar or click a badge. Badges indicate if an index is a follower index or a rollup index.
To view and manage your data streams, including backing indices and retention settings, go to the Data Streams tab.
To create, edit, clone, or delete index templates and component templates that define how Elasticsearch configures new indices or data streams, go the Index Templates or Component Templates tab.
To create, execute, or delete enrich policies that add data from existing indices to incoming documents during ingest, open the Enrich Policies tab.

To access details and perform operations on indices:
- For a single index, click the index name to drill down into the index overview, mappings, settings, and statistics. From this view, you can navigate to Discover to further explore the documents in the index, and you can perform operations using the Manage index menu.
- For multiple indices, select their checkboxes and then open the Manage indices menu.
Turn on Include hidden indices to view the full set of indices, including backing indices for data streams.
To filter the list of indices, use the search bar or click a badge. Badges indicate if an index is a follower index or a rollup index.
To view and manage your data streams, including backing indices and retention settings, go to the Data Streams tab.
To create, edit, clone, or delete index templates and component templates that define how Elasticsearch configures new indices or data streams, go the Index Templates or Component Templates tab.
To create, execute, or delete enrich policies that add data from existing indices to incoming documents during ingest, open the Enrich Policies tab.