# Expire Documents

To ensure that the documents in your IDOL Content component are current, you can run an expiration operation, which deletes or archives documents that reach a specific age. You can expire documents:

- immediately, by sending a `DREEXPIRE` action

- at regular intervals, by setting up a scheduled expiration operation

By default, Content deletes documents when they expire. To archive them instead, enter the name of the database to use for archiving as the value of the `ExpireIntoDatabase` parameter in each of the IDOL Content component configuration file database sections.

Content can read the date that determines when a document expires from:

- a field in the document.

- the expiration time that you set for the database that contains the document.

Content does not expire the document if it is unable to determine whether a document must expire (for example, because it does not contain the expiration field, and the database has no expiration time).

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