# Can I have my Mechanic data retained for more (or less) than 15 days?

Sort of! Let's review how Mechanic's data retention works, first:

{% hint style="info" %}

* An event and its related task and action runs are deleted/expunged 15 days after the event is considered "complete".
* An event is "complete" when both of the following are true:
  * The event's task and action runs are complete (i.e. they've been run cancelled)
  * The next five generations of child events are considered "complete"

This is an abbreviated summary! See the rest of the details here: [Retention of events](/platform/policies/data.md#retention-of-events)
{% endhint %}

The 15 day period is fixed. We don't support different retention periods for specific Mechanic accounts, whether longer or shorter.

However, you can manually increase the retention period by generating child events with [Event actions](/core/actions/event.md). By scheduling a child event for the future, you can prevent the parent event from being deleted until 15 days after that child event is performed. This gives you a measure of control over data retention at the event level – something that isn't available at the shop level.

This approach doesn't work for decreasing the retention period, naturally. This means that the 15 day retention period is a practical minimum, but not a practical maximum.

## Example

This Event action schedules an event for 5 days in the future. Once the child event runs, the parent event will be considered complete. 15 days from completion, the parent event is deleted.

Any impact from other child events aside, the result is a practical data retention period of 20 days for this event.

```liquid
{% action "event" %}
  {
    "topic": "user/noop/data_retention",
    "run_at": {{ "now" | date: advance: "5 days" | json }}
  }
{% endaction %}
```


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