Only pay-as-you-go Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances (including preemptible instances) and expired subscription instances can be released. This topic describes how to release pay-as-you-go instances manually or automatically.

Prerequisites

After an instance is released, its data is deleted and cannot be recovered. We recommend that you create snapshots to back up data before you release the instance. For more information, see Create a snapshot for a disk.
Note After an instance is released, snapshots and images manually created from the instance are not affected.

Background information

  • Subscription instances that have not expired cannot be released. If you want to release a subscription instance that has not expired, you must convert it into a pay-as-you-go instance first. For more information, see Change the billing method of an instance from subscription to pay-as-you-go.
  • You can manually release expired subscription instances. If you do not renew an expired instance within a specific period of time, the instance is automatically released.
  • If economical mode is disabled for a stopped pay-as-you-go instance, you continue to be charged for the instance until it is released.
  • You can enable release protection for a pay-as-you-go instance to prevent irreversible data loss caused by accidental release operations. For more information, see Enable or disable release protection for ECS instances.
  • If the Release Disk with Instance feature is disabled for a disk attached to an instance, the disk is automatically converted into a pay-as-you-go data disk and retained when the instance is released. For more information, see Release a disk.

Manually release instances

You can manually release pay-as-you-go instances in the ECS console.

  1. Log on to the ECS console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Instances & Images > Instances.
  3. In the top navigation bar, select a region.
  4. Release one or more pay-as-you-go instances at a time.
    • To release a single pay-as-you-go instance, find the instance and choose More > Instance Status > Release in the Actions column. Instance Status
    • To release one or more pay-as-you-go instances at a time, click the Filter icon at the top of the Billing Method column and select Pay-As-You-Go from the drop-down list. In the displayed list of pay-as-you-go instances, select the instances that you want to release and then click Release below the instance list. Release
  5. In the Release dialog box, select Release Now.
  6. Click Next and then click OK.

Enable or disable automatic release

  1. Log on to the ECS console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Instances & Images > Instances.
  3. In the top navigation bar, select a region.
  4. Configure automatic release for one or more pay-as-you-go instances at a time.
    • To configure automatic release for a single pay-as-you-go instance, find the instance and choose More > Instance Status > Release in the Actions column.
    • To configure automatic release for one or more pay-as-you-go instances at a time, click the Filter icon at the top of the Billing Method column and select Pay-As-You-Go from the drop-down list. In the displayed list of pay-as-you-go instances, select the instances for which you want to configure automatic release and click Release below the instance list.
  5. Enable or disable automatic release.
    • Enable automatic release
      1. In the Release dialog box, select Scheduled Release.
      2. Turn on Automatic Release and specify a date and time to release the selected instances.
        Note The specified release time must be at least 30 minutes later than the current time and accurate to the minute.
        Turn on Automatic Release
      3. Click Next. Then, click OK.
    • Disable automatic release
      1. In the Release dialog box, select Scheduled Release.
      2. Turn off Automatic Release.
      3. Click Next. Then, click OK.