diff --git a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java
index 5e5b2ed3fec..0bed51e0e24 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java
@@ -128,6 +128,7 @@ public class InternalEngine extends Engine {
     private final AtomicInteger throttleRequestCount = new AtomicInteger();
     private final EngineConfig.OpenMode openMode;
     private final AtomicBoolean pendingTranslogRecovery = new AtomicBoolean(false);
+    private static final String MAX_UNSAFE_AUTO_ID_TIMESTAMP_COMMIT_ID = "max_unsafe_auto_id_timestamp";
     private final AtomicLong maxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp = new AtomicLong(-1);
     private final CounterMetric numVersionLookups = new CounterMetric();
     private final CounterMetric numIndexVersionsLookups = new CounterMetric();
@@ -178,6 +179,7 @@ public class InternalEngine extends Engine {
                 }
                 logger.trace("recovered [{}]", seqNoStats);
                 seqNoService = sequenceNumberService(shardId, engineConfig.getIndexSettings(), seqNoStats);
+                updateMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestampFromWriter(writer);
                 // norelease
                 /*
                  * We have no guarantees that all operations above the local checkpoint are in the Lucene commit or the translog. This means
@@ -226,6 +228,17 @@ public class InternalEngine extends Engine {
         logger.trace("created new InternalEngine");
     }
 
+    private void updateMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestampFromWriter(IndexWriter writer) {
+        long commitMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp = Long.MIN_VALUE;
+        for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : writer.getLiveCommitData()) {
+            if (entry.getKey().equals(MAX_UNSAFE_AUTO_ID_TIMESTAMP_COMMIT_ID)) {
+                commitMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp = Long.parseLong(entry.getValue());
+                break;
+            }
+        }
+        maxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp.set(Math.max(maxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp.get(), commitMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp));
+    }
+
     private static SequenceNumbersService sequenceNumberService(
         final ShardId shardId,
         final IndexSettings indexSettings,
@@ -500,7 +513,7 @@ public class InternalEngine extends Engine {
                     return true;
                 case LOCAL_TRANSLOG_RECOVERY:
                     assert index.isRetry();
-                    return false; // even if retry is set we never optimize local recovery
+                    return true; // allow to optimize in order to update the max safe time stamp
                 default:
                     throw new IllegalArgumentException("unknown origin " + index.origin());
             }
@@ -1770,6 +1783,7 @@ public class InternalEngine extends Engine {
                     commitData.put(Engine.SYNC_COMMIT_ID, syncId);
                 }
                 commitData.put(SequenceNumbers.MAX_SEQ_NO, Long.toString(seqNoService().getMaxSeqNo()));
+                commitData.put(MAX_UNSAFE_AUTO_ID_TIMESTAMP_COMMIT_ID, Long.toString(maxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp.get()));
                 logger.trace("committing writer with commit data [{}]", commitData);
                 return commitData.entrySet().iterator();
             });
diff --git a/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngineTests.java b/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngineTests.java
index 3f9965c0662..71d754ddfb6 100644
--- a/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngineTests.java
+++ b/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngineTests.java
@@ -3223,11 +3223,40 @@ public class InternalEngineTests extends ESTestCase {
 
         }
 
-        long maxTimestamp = Math.abs(randomLong());
-        try (Store store = createStore();
-             Engine engine = new InternalEngine(config(defaultSettings, store, createTempDir(), NoMergePolicy.INSTANCE,
-                 maxTimestamp, null))) {
-            assertEquals(maxTimestamp, engine.segmentsStats(false).getMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp());
+        final long timestamp1 = Math.abs(randomLong());
+        final Path storeDir = createTempDir();
+        final Path translogDir = createTempDir();
+        try (Store store = createStore(newFSDirectory(storeDir));
+             Engine engine = new InternalEngine(
+                 config(defaultSettings, store, translogDir, NoMergePolicy.INSTANCE, timestamp1, null))) {
+            assertEquals(timestamp1, engine.segmentsStats(false).getMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp());
+        }
+        final long timestamp2 = randomNonNegativeLong();
+        final long timestamp3 = randomNonNegativeLong();
+        final long maxTimestamp12 = Math.max(timestamp1, timestamp2);
+        final long maxTimestamp123 = Math.max(maxTimestamp12, timestamp3);
+        try (Store store = createStore(newFSDirectory(storeDir));
+             Engine engine = new InternalEngine(
+                 copy(config(defaultSettings, store, translogDir, NoMergePolicy.INSTANCE, timestamp2, null),
+                     randomFrom(EngineConfig.OpenMode.OPEN_INDEX_AND_TRANSLOG, EngineConfig.OpenMode.OPEN_INDEX_CREATE_TRANSLOG)))) {
+            assertEquals(maxTimestamp12, engine.segmentsStats(false).getMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp());
+            if (engine.config().getOpenMode() == EngineConfig.OpenMode.OPEN_INDEX_AND_TRANSLOG) {
+                // recover from translog and commit maxTimestamp12
+                engine.recoverFromTranslog();
+                // force flush as the were no ops performed
+                engine.flush(true, false);
+            }
+            final ParsedDocument doc = testParsedDocument("1", "test", null, testDocumentWithTextField(),
+                new BytesArray("{}".getBytes(Charset.defaultCharset())), null);
+            engine.index(appendOnlyPrimary(doc, true, timestamp3));
+            assertEquals(maxTimestamp123, engine.segmentsStats(false).getMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp());
+        }
+        try (Store store = createStore(newFSDirectory(storeDir));
+             Engine engine = new InternalEngine(
+                 config(defaultSettings, store, translogDir, NoMergePolicy.INSTANCE, IndexRequest.UNSET_AUTO_GENERATED_TIMESTAMP, null))) {
+            assertEquals(maxTimestamp12, engine.segmentsStats(false).getMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp());
+            engine.recoverFromTranslog();
+            assertEquals(maxTimestamp123, engine.segmentsStats(false).getMaxUnsafeAutoIdTimestamp());
         }
     }