question Re: Set cell-level TTL for existing rows in HBase in Support Questions

Set cell-level TTL for existing rows in HBase

SnehasishRSC — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 07:56:12 GMT

Hi Community,

We are working on a new requirement where I need to disable table-level TTL and rather use cell-level TTL for one of our HBase tables.

I can disable the table-level TTL by altering the table property and set cell-level TTL for new incoming data. However, I can't find anything on how can I set cell-level TTL for the data / rows that are already existing in the table.

Any suggestions will be very helpful.

Thank you,

Snehasish

Re: Set cell-level TTL for existing rows in HBase

rki_ — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 11:45:39 GMT

Cell TTL is something that is defined at insertion time. So for an already existing data, you can perform a put of the same cell, which then will have the exact cell value on a new Hfile with the new TTL for the cell.

Re: Set cell-level TTL for existing rows in HBase

VidyaSargur — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 06:23:43 GMT

@SnehasishRSC, Has the reply helped resolve your issue? If so, can you please mark the appropriate reply as the solution, as it will make it easier for others to find the answer in the future?