With object lock enabled, your data in a bucket can be protected through a write-once-read-many (WORM) mechanism. Object lock prevents deletion of an object version for a specified retention period.¹

• Bucket settings
• Check object lock expiration date
• Manually lock an object
• Extend retention period

Enable object lock

The object lock feature must be enabled upon bucket creation. You cannot enable the feature later for a bucket with object lock disabled. Once enabled, the feature cannot be suspended, either.

Set default retention period

1. On C2 Object Storage web portal > Buckets, hover your mouse pointer over a bucket, click on the floating ⋮ button, and choose Set data protection.
   
2. If you select Set default retention period, any future uploads via the web portal (or via an API call without the retention period parameter) onto this bucket will be locked automatically for the specified number of days. You can choose from the drop-down menu or directly enter your desired number of days.
   
3. Click Save.

For more information, refer to Manage buckets > Set data protection.

You can check the expiration date of an object version's object lock retention period from its metadata.

1. Hover your mouse pointer over an object (or its specific version), click on the floating ⋮ button, and choose View metadata.
   
2. If object lock is applied to the object version, you can view the Expiration data in its metadata.
   

If the default retention period was not set, you can manually set the retention period's expiration date for an uploaded object to lock it immediately.

1. Hover your mouse pointer over an object, click on the floating ⋮ button, and choose Set object lock expiration date.
   
2. Click on the field and select your desired expiration date from the pop-up calendar, and then click OK.
   
3. The object lock is now applied to the object's current version. If you delete the object outside the "Show versions" view (i.e., not permanent deletion) or upload a new object with the same file name, this locked version will become a noncurrent version, which you can retrieve from the "Show versions" view.

You can also lock a specific noncurrent version of an object.

1. In the Show versions view, hover your mouse pointer over an object, click on the floating ⋮ button, and choose View all versions.
   
2. Hover your mouse pointer over a specific version, click on the floating ⋮ button, and choose Set object lock expiration date.
   
3. Click on the field and select your desired expiration date from the pop-up calendar, and then click OK. This version is now locked and cannot be deleted until the expiration date.

You can manually set a new expiration date¹ of retention period (following the same steps instructed in Manually lock an object above) for an already locked object version.

• Manage buckets
• What is C2 Object Storage?