Correction, October 13, 2026: Active-branch protection covers the latest preview deployment, not every build on an open branch. Custom-alias protection differs between production and preview builds. The ordinary retention window still applies unless the team exceeds its storage limit.
What happened
Vercel changed how long it keeps old deployments on its free Hobby plan. The company announced Deployment Retention for Hobby teams now deletes old deployments sooner on September 16.
A deployment is a live, working copy of your app that Vercel builds and hosts every time you push code or make a change. Vercel keeps old deployments around so you can roll back to one if a new version breaks something. Hobby accounts get 10GB of storage for all of that saved history, called Deployment Storage.
Each Hobby project protects its three most recent Ready production deployments, plus its three most recent deployments of any type, regardless of age. Other exceptions still apply. Without one, older deployments become eligible after the configured retention window, normally 30 days. Preview deployments, the working copies Vercel builds while you’re testing changes on a branch (a separate line of edits not yet merged into your live app) before those changes go live, no longer get their own separate protection.
If your team is already over the 10GB limit, deployments outside those few exceptions now get deleted right away instead of waiting the usual 30 days.
Why it matters
Preview deployments lost a separate retention protection. The former exception for recent successful non-production builds no longer applies on Hobby. The general retention window and the remaining exceptions still apply.
Your current production deployment is still never deleted. Non-production deployments with a custom alias (a specific web address you’ve pointed at that deployment, separate from its default Vercel URL), and the latest preview deployment on an active branch are also protected. An active branch has not been deleted and its pull request has not been merged or closed. A preview from a merged or closed branch loses active-branch protection, but may still qualify through another exception or remain within its retention window.
This mostly bites side projects and abandoned experiments, the kind of Hobby account that racks up months of preview builds without anyone deleting them. If that project is anywhere near the 10GB cap, old links can start disappearing without a specific warning tied to that link.
There is a recovery window. Vercel’s deployment retention docs confirm that a deleted deployment can be restored for 30 days after deletion, as long as it built successfully. After that, it’s gone for good.
Who should care
This matters if you’re running one or more apps on Vercel’s free Hobby plan and you’ve deployed enough over time that you’re not sure how close you are to 10GB. It matters even more if you routinely share preview links for review, since those are exactly the deployments that lost protection.
It matters less if you’re on Pro or Enterprise, where the retention windows are longer by default, or if you’re a Hobby user with a single small project that rarely accumulates old builds.
What builders should do next
Check your current usage before assuming you’re fine. Open your team’s Usage page in the Vercel dashboard, then select Deployment Storage, to see your total and which project is using the most of it.
If you’re close to or over 10GB and you rely on a specific old preview link, don’t wait for it to disappear. A custom alias protects a non-production deployment. For older production builds, check the applicable exceptions in Vercel’s retention policy.
If a deployment does vanish that you needed, go to that project’s Settings, then Security, then Recently Deleted, within 30 days. That’s where Vercel lets you restore it. After that window, the deleted deployment cannot be restored. You can redeploy its commit, the saved code snapshot, to create a new deployment and URL. That does not guarantee an identical build if dependencies or configuration have changed.
If storage keeps climbing even after checking, the paid option is Vercel Pro, where storage is billed at $0.10 per GB per month. For a free side project, the faster fix is deleting deployments you don’t need instead of paying to keep everything.
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