Delete a VM

---

This document describes how to delete virtual machine (VM) instances.

If you no longer need a VM, delete it to stop incurring charges for the VM and its attached resources. If you want to preserve an attached resource, do one or more of the following before deleting the VM:

• To preserve a GPU attached to an N1 VM that you want to delete, remove the GPU from the VM.

• To preserve a Persistent Disk, do one of the following:

  • To preserve a boot disk, detach the boot disk from the VM.

  • To preserve a boot or non-boot disk, set the disk's auto-delete setting to false.

• Unassign the static external IP address from the VM.

Important: If you delete a VM that is part of a managed instance group (MIG) with autoscaler, the MIG might automatically create a replacement VM to maintain its target size. To prevent this, either resize the MIG or reconfigure its autoscaler before deleting the VM.

Before you begin

• If you haven't already, then set up authentication. Authentication is the process by which your identity is verified for access to Google Cloud services and APIs. To run code or samples from a local development environment, you can authenticate to Compute Engine by selecting one of the following options:
  

  Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:

  Console

  When you use the Google Cloud console to access Google Cloud services and APIs, you don't need to set up authentication.

  gcloud

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:

     gcloud init

     Note: If you installed the gcloud CLI previously, make sure you have the latest version by running gcloud components update.
  2. Set a default region and zone.

  C#

  To use the .NET samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

  For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

  Go

  To use the Go samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

  For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

  Java

  To use the Java samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

  For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

  Node.js

  To use the Node.js samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

  For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

  PHP

  To use the PHP samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

  For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

  Python

  To use the Python samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

  For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

  Ruby

  To use the Ruby samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

  For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

  REST

  To use the REST API samples on this page in a local development environment, you use the credentials you provide to the gcloud CLI.

  Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:

  gcloud init

  For more information, see Authenticate for using REST in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.

Required roles

To get the permissions that you need to delete a VM, ask your administrator to grant you the Compute Instance Admin (v1) (roles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1) IAM role on the project. For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

This predefined role contains the permissions required to delete a VM. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissions section:

Required permissions

The following permissions are required to delete a VM:

• compute.instances.delete on the VM
• To force the deletion of an attached Persistent Disk: compute.disks.delete on the disk

You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles.

Billing implications

After you delete a VM, Google Cloud no longer bills you for the VM and its attached resources unless any of the following situations apply:

• If you delete a VM that is hosted on a sole-tenant node, you continue paying for the sole-tenant node itself instead of the individual VMs hosted on the node.

• If you have a committed use discount, you continue paying for the resources you committed to, whether or not you use those resources.

• If you preserve any resources that were attached to the VM, you continue incurring charges for those resources until you delete them. For example, if you delete a VM but preserve the Persistent Disk volumes attached to it, you continue incurring charges for the disks.

For more information, see VM instances pricing.

Process for deleting a VM

When deleting a VM, Compute Engine does the following:

1. Compute Engine sends the ACPI shutdown signal to the VM, and then it sets the VM state to STOPPING within a few seconds.

2. Compute Engine starts a clean shutdown of the operating system (OS) within the VM. The shutdown period lasts as follows based on the VM type:

   • Preemptible VMs: Preemptible VMs have a shutdown period of 30 seconds, which is the same length of the preemption process.

   • Other VM types: Any other VM types have a shutdown period of at least 90 seconds.

3. At the end of the shutdown period, Compute Engine permanently deletes the VM and its attached resources. If you configured a Persistent Disk to be preserved when deleting the VM it's attached to, Compute Engine preserves the disk upon VM deletion.

Delete VMs

To delete one or more VMs, see one of the following sections from this document:

• To delete VMs and all of their attached resources (default), see Delete VMs and all attached resources.

• To delete VMs but preserve their attached Persistent Disk volumes, see Delete VMs and preserve Persistent Disk volumes.

Delete VMs and all attached resources

When you delete a VM, Compute Engine deletes the VM and all of its attached resources by default. However, if you configured a Persistent Disk to be preserved upon VM deletion, you can override this setting and delete both the VM and the disk using the gcloud CLI.

Caution: If you forcefully delete a disk that is attached to the VM, then all instant snapshots of the disk are also deleted. You can't recover the instant snapshots after the disk is deleted. To retain the data on an instant snapshot, create a standard snapshot from the instant snapshot before you delete the VM.

To delete multiple VMs simultaneously, use either the Google Cloud console or, for VMs located in the same zone, the gcloud CLI. Otherwise, to delete a single VM, use any method described in this section.

Console

To delete one or more VMs, do the following:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.

   Go to VM instances

2. Select the VMs that you want to delete.

3. Click Delete, and then click Delete again to confirm.

gcloud

To delete one or more VMs, use the gcloud compute instances delete command.

gcloud compute instances delete VM_NAMES \
    --zone=ZONE

Replace the following:

• VM_NAMES: a whitespace-separated list of names of VMs that are located in the same zone; for example, vm-01 vm-02 vm-03.

• ZONE: the zone of the VM.

Optionally, to force the deletion of the Persistent Disk volumes attached to one or more VMs, include the --delete-disks flag.

gcloud compute instances delete VM_NAMES \
    --delete-disks=DELETE_DISK_TYPE \
    --zone=ZONE

Replace DELETE_DISK_TYPE with the type of attached Persistent Disk volumes to delete. Specify one of the following values:

• To delete all types of disks: all.

• To delete only boot disks: boot.

• To delete only non-boot disks: data.

C#

using Google.Cloud.Compute.V1;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

public class DeleteInstanceAsyncSample
{
    public async Task DeleteInstanceAsync(
        // TODO(developer): Set your own default values for these parameters or pass different values when calling this method.
        string projectId = "your-project-id",
        string zone = "us-central1-a",
        string machineName = "test-machine")
    {

        // Initialize client that will be used to send requests. This client only needs to be created
        // once, and can be reused for multiple requests.
        InstancesClient client = await InstancesClient.CreateAsync();

        // Make the request to delete a VM instance.
        var instanceDeletion = await client.DeleteAsync(projectId, zone, machineName);

        // Wait for the operation to complete using client-side polling.
        await instanceDeletion.PollUntilCompletedAsync();
    }
}

Go

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"io"

	compute "cloud.google.com/go/compute/apiv1"
	computepb "cloud.google.com/go/compute/apiv1/computepb"
)

// deleteInstance sends a delete request to the Compute Engine API and waits for it to complete.
func deleteInstance(w io.Writer, projectID, zone, instanceName string) error {
	// projectID := "your_project_id"
	// zone := "europe-central2-b"
	// instanceName := "your_instance_name"
	ctx := context.Background()
	instancesClient, err := compute.NewInstancesRESTClient(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("NewInstancesRESTClient: %w", err)
	}
	defer instancesClient.Close()

	req := &computepb.DeleteInstanceRequest{
		Project:  projectID,
		Zone:     zone,
		Instance: instanceName,
	}

	op, err := instancesClient.Delete(ctx, req)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to delete instance: %w", err)
	}

	if err = op.Wait(ctx); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to wait for the operation: %w", err)
	}

	fmt.Fprintf(w, "Instance deleted\n")

	return nil
}

Java

import com.google.api.gax.longrunning.OperationFuture;
import com.google.cloud.compute.v1.DeleteInstanceRequest;
import com.google.cloud.compute.v1.InstancesClient;
import com.google.cloud.compute.v1.Operation;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeoutException;

public class DeleteInstance {

  public static void main(String[] args)
      throws IOException, InterruptedException, ExecutionException, TimeoutException {
    // TODO(developer): Replace these variables before running the sample.
    String project = "your-project-id";
    String zone = "zone-name";
    String instanceName = "instance-name";
    deleteInstance(project, zone, instanceName);
  }

  // Delete the instance specified by `instanceName`
  // if it's present in the given project and zone.
  public static void deleteInstance(String project, String zone, String instanceName)
      throws IOException, InterruptedException, ExecutionException, TimeoutException {
    // Initialize client that will be used to send requests. This client only needs to be created
    // once, and can be reused for multiple requests. After completing all of your requests, call
    // the `instancesClient.close()` method on the client to safely
    // clean up any remaining background resources.
    try (InstancesClient instancesClient = InstancesClient.create()) {

      System.out.printf("Deleting instance: %s ", instanceName);

      // Describe which instance is to be deleted.
      DeleteInstanceRequest deleteInstanceRequest = DeleteInstanceRequest.newBuilder()
          .setProject(project)
          .setZone(zone)
          .setInstance(instanceName).build();

      OperationFuture<Operation, Operation> operation = instancesClient.deleteAsync(
          deleteInstanceRequest);
      // Wait for the operation to complete.
      Operation response = operation.get(3, TimeUnit.MINUTES);

      if (response.hasError()) {
        System.out.println("Instance deletion failed ! ! " + response);
        return;
      }
      System.out.println("Operation Status: " + response.getStatus());
    }
  }
}

Node.js

/**
 * TODO(developer): Uncomment these variables before running the sample.
 */
// const projectId = 'YOUR_PROJECT_ID';
// const zone = 'europe-central2-b'
// const instanceName = 'YOUR_INSTANCE_NAME';

const compute = require('@google-cloud/compute');

// Delete the instance specified by `instanceName` if it's present in the given project and zone.
async function deleteInstance() {
  const instancesClient = new compute.InstancesClient();

  console.log(`Deleting ${instanceName} from ${zone}...`);

  const [response] = await instancesClient.delete({
    project: projectId,
    zone,
    instance: instanceName,
  });
  let operation = response.latestResponse;
  const operationsClient = new compute.ZoneOperationsClient();

  // Wait for the delete operation to complete.
  while (operation.status !== 'DONE') {
    [operation] = await operationsClient.wait({
      operation: operation.name,
      project: projectId,
      zone: operation.zone.split('/').pop(),
    });
  }

  console.log('Instance deleted.');
}

deleteInstance();

PHP

use Google\Cloud\Compute\V1\Client\InstancesClient;
use Google\Cloud\Compute\V1\DeleteInstanceRequest;

/**
 * Delete an instance.
 *
 * @param string $projectId Your Google Cloud project ID.
 * @param string $zone Zone where the instance you want to delete is (like "us-central1-a").
 * @param string $instanceName Unique name for the Compute instance to delete.
 *
 * @throws \Google\ApiCore\ApiException if the remote call fails.
 * @throws \Google\ApiCore\ValidationException if local error occurs before remote call.
 */
function delete_instance(
    string $projectId,
    string $zone,
    string $instanceName
) {
    // Delete the Compute Engine instance using InstancesClient.
    $instancesClient = new InstancesClient();
    $request = (new DeleteInstanceRequest())
        ->setInstance($instanceName)
        ->setProject($projectId)
        ->setZone($zone);
    $operation = $instancesClient->delete($request);

    // Wait for the operation to complete.
    $operation->pollUntilComplete();
    if ($operation->operationSucceeded()) {
        printf('Deleted instance %s' . PHP_EOL, $instanceName);
    } else {
        $error = $operation->getError();
        printf('Failed to delete instance: %s' . PHP_EOL, $error?->getMessage());
    }
}

Python

from __future__ import annotations

import sys
from typing import Any

from google.api_core.extended_operation import ExtendedOperation
from google.cloud import compute_v1


def wait_for_extended_operation(
    operation: ExtendedOperation, verbose_name: str = "operation", timeout: int = 300
) -> Any:
    """
    Waits for the extended (long-running) operation to complete.

    If the operation is successful, it will return its result.
    If the operation ends with an error, an exception will be raised.
    If there were any warnings during the execution of the operation
    they will be printed to sys.stderr.

    Args:
        operation: a long-running operation you want to wait on.
        verbose_name: (optional) a more verbose name of the operation,
            used only during error and warning reporting.
        timeout: how long (in seconds) to wait for operation to finish.
            If None, wait indefinitely.

    Returns:
        Whatever the operation.result() returns.

    Raises:
        This method will raise the exception received from `operation.exception()`
        or RuntimeError if there is no exception set, but there is an `error_code`
        set for the `operation`.

        In case of an operation taking longer than `timeout` seconds to complete,
        a `concurrent.futures.TimeoutError` will be raised.
    """
    result = operation.result(timeout=timeout)

    if operation.error_code:
        print(
            f"Error during {verbose_name}: [Code: {operation.error_code}]: {operation.error_message}",
            file=sys.stderr,
            flush=True,
        )
        print(f"Operation ID: {operation.name}", file=sys.stderr, flush=True)
        raise operation.exception() or RuntimeError(operation.error_message)

    if operation.warnings:
        print(f"Warnings during {verbose_name}:\n", file=sys.stderr, flush=True)
        for warning in operation.warnings:
            print(f" - {warning.code}: {warning.message}", file=sys.stderr, flush=True)

    return result


def delete_instance(project_id: str, zone: str, machine_name: str) -> None:
    """
    Send an instance deletion request to the Compute Engine API and wait for it to complete.

    Args:
        project_id: project ID or project number of the Cloud project you want to use.
        zone: name of the zone you want to use. For example: “us-west3-b”
        machine_name: name of the machine you want to delete.
    """
    instance_client = compute_v1.InstancesClient()

    print(f"Deleting {machine_name} from {zone}...")
    operation = instance_client.delete(
        project=project_id, zone=zone, instance=machine_name
    )
    wait_for_extended_operation(operation, "instance deletion")
    print(f"Instance {machine_name} deleted.")

Ruby

require "google/cloud/compute/v1"

# Sends an instance deletion request to the Compute Engine API and waits for it to complete.
#
# @param [String] project project ID or project number of the Cloud project you want to use.
# @param [String] zone name of the zone you want to use. For example: "us-west3-b"
# @param [String] instance_name name of the instance you want to delete.
def delete_instance project:, zone:, instance_name:
  # Initialize client that will be used to send requests. This client only needs to be created
  # once, and can be reused for multiple requests.
  client = ::Google::Cloud::Compute::V1::Instances::Rest::Client.new

  puts "Deleting #{instance_name} from #{zone}..."
  begin
    # Make the request to delete a VM instance.
    operation = client.delete project: project, zone: zone, instance: instance_name
    # Wait for the delete operation to complete.
    operation = wait_until_done operation: operation

    if operation.error?
      warn "Error during deletion:", operation.error
    else
      compute_operation = operation.operation
      warn "Warning during creation:", compute_operation.warnings unless compute_operation.warnings.empty?
      puts "Instance #{instance_name} deleted."
    end
  rescue ::Google::Cloud::Error => e
    warn "Exception during deletion:", e
  end
end

REST

To delete a VM, make a DELETE request to the instances delete method.

DELETE https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/VM_NAME

Replace the following:

• PROJECT_ID: the ID of the project where the VM is located.

• ZONE: the zone of the VM.

• VM_NAME: the VM name.

Delete VMs and preserve Persistent Disk volumes

By default, deleting a VM deletes the VM and its attached resources. However, when you delete a VM using the gcloud CLI, you can specify to preserve the attached boot disks, non-boot disks, or both regardless of the disks' auto-delete settings.

To delete one or more VMs located in the same zone while preserving their attached Persistent Disk volumes, use the gcloud compute instances delete command with the --keep-disks flag.

gcloud compute instances delete VM_NAMES \
    --keep-disks=KEEP_DISK_TYPE \
    --zone=ZONE

Replace the following:

• VM_NAMES: a whitespace-separated list of names of VMs that are located in the same zone; for example, vm-01 vm-02 vm-03.

• KEEP_DISK_TYPE: the types of attached Persistent Disk volumes to preserve. Specify one of the following values:

  • To preserve all types of disks: all.

  • To preserve only boot disks: boot.

  • To preserve only non-boot disks: data.

• ZONE: the zone where the VMs are located.

What's next

• Learn more about a VM life cycle.

• Learn more about the costs incurred for stopped VMs.

• Learn how to limit the runtime of a VM.