# Reduce just ClickHouse retention

**URL:** <https://forums.percona.com/t/reduce-just-clickhouse-retention/39604>\
**Category:** PMM 2.x\
**Tags:** pmm\
**Created:** [October 23, 2025, 5:25pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/reduce-just-clickhouse-retention/39604 "2025-10-23T17:25:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Juan\_Ferrer\_Toribio](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/juan_ferrer_toribio/32/22424_2.png) [@Juan\_Ferrer\_Toribio](https://forums.percona.com/u/Juan_Ferrer_Toribio)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 5:25pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/reduce-just-clickhouse-retention/39604/1 "2025-10-23T17:25:06Z")

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## Description:

When running PMM with Docker, it’s possible to modify retention with the DATA\_RETENTION environment variable, but this seems to affect VictoriaMetrics ¿and ClickHouse?. In my case, ClickHouse is using the most space. How can I increase VictoriaMetrics retention but reduce just ClickHouse?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![matthewb](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/matthewb/32/34_2.png) [@matthewb](https://forums.percona.com/u/matthewb)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 9:55pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/reduce-just-clickhouse-retention/39604/2 "2025-10-28T21:55:41Z")

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Hey there @Juan_Ferrer_Toribio  
Unfortunately this is not possible with the PMM install. Please open a feature request at [https://jira.percona.com/](https://jira.percona.com/) under the PMM project.

You can always attempt this yourself. Exec into the running pmm container, then use the clickhouse cli and manually perform any cleanup. Keep in mind that the password for the clickhouse user is random, and hashed. You’ll have to edit the clickhouse user xml and create a new user, or change the password to something known, restart clickhouse using supervisorctl. be sure to set the password back otherwise PMM won’t be able to log in.