[Snapshots]({{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/opensearch/snapshots/index/) are backups of a cluster’s indexes and state. The state includes cluster settings, node information, index metadata (mappings, settings, templates), and shard allocation. The Snapshot Management (SM) interface in OpenSearch Dashboards provides a unified solution for taking and restoring snapshots.
{::nomarkdown}<imgsrc="{{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/images/icons/star-icon.png"class="inline-icon"alt="star icon"/>{:/} **Note:** If you need to automate snapshot creation, you can use a snapshot policy.
Create an SM policy to set up automatic snapshots. An SM policy defines an automated snapshot creation schedule and an optional automated deletion schedule.
The policy settings, snapshot schedule, snapshot retention period, notifications, and last creation and deletion are displayed in the policy details page. <br> If a snapshot creation or deletion fails, you can view information about the failure in the **Last Creation/Deletion** section. To view the failure message, click on the **cause** in the **Info** column.
1. In the left panel, under **Snapshot Management**, select **Snapshot Policies**.
1. Select one or more policies in the list.
1. To enable or disable selected SM policies, select the **Enable** or **Disable** button. To delete selected SM policies, in the **Actions** list, select the **Delete** option.
{::nomarkdown}<imgsrc="{{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/images/icons/star-icon.png"class="inline-icon"alt="star icon"/>{:/} **Note:** You can only restore snapshots with the status of `Success` or `Partial`. The status of the snapshot is displayed in the **Snapshot status** column.
1. In the **Restore snapshot** flyout, select the options for restoring the snapshot.
The **Restore snapshot** flyout lists the snapshot name and status. To view the list of indexes in the snapshot, select the number under **Indices** (for example, `27` in the following image). This number represents the number of indexes in the snapshot.
For more information about the options in the **Restore snapshot** flyout, see [Restore snapshots]({{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/opensearch/snapshots/snapshot-restore#restore-snapshots).
If you specify which indexes you want to restore from the snapshot and select the **Ignore unavailable indices** option, the restore operation ignores the indexes that are missing from the snapshot. For example, if you want to restore the `log1` and `log2` indexes, but `log2` is not in the snapshot, `log1` is restored and `log2` is ignored. If you don't select **Ignore unavailable indices**, the entire restore operation fails if an index to be restored is missing from a snapshot.
**Custom index settings**
You can choose to customize some settings for the indexes restored from a snapshot:<br>
 • Select the **Customize index settings** checkbox to provide new values for the specified index settings. All newly restored indexes will use these values instead of the ones in the snapshot. <br>
 • Select the **Ignore index settings** checkbox to specify the settings in the snapshot to ignore. All newly restored indexes will use the cluster defaults for these settings.
The examples in the following image set `index.number_of_replicas` to `0`, `index.auto_expand_replicas` to `true`, and `index.refresh_interval` and `index.max_script_fields` to the cluster default values for all newly restored indexes.
For a list of settings that you cannot change or ignore, see [Restore snapshots]({{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/opensearch/snapshots/snapshot-restore#restore-snapshots).
1. (Optional) To monitor the restore progress, select **View restore activities** in the confirmation dialog. You can also monitor the restore progress at any time by selecting the **Restore activities in progress** tab, as shown in the following image.
You can view the percentage of the job that has been completed in the **Status** column. Once the snapshot restore is complete, the **Status** changes to `Completed (100%)`.
{::nomarkdown}<imgsrc="{{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/images/icons/star-icon.png"class="inline-icon"alt="star icon"/>{:/} **Note:** The **Restore activities in progress** panel is not persistent. It displays only the progress of the current restore operation. If multiple restore operations are running, the panel displays the most recent one.
To view the status of each index being restored, select the link in the **Indices being restored** column (in the preceding image, the `27 Indices` link). The **Indices being restored** flyout (shown in the following image) displays each index and its restore status.
After the restore operation is complete, the restored indexes are listed in the **Indices** panel. To view the indexes, in the left panel, under **Index Management**, choose **Indices**.