Database pause: what happens to an unused free database
A free Voroa database with no queries for 7 days is paused. How idle is measured, what happens to your data and backup, and how to resume it in one click.
What this covers
Pausing means a free database that nothing has queried for 7 days is stopped. Its data stays exactly where it is, a fresh backup is taken first, and you start it again yourself whenever you need it. Unlike a web service, a database is not woken by the next request that arrives — you press Resume.
Pause applies only to the free Postgres and Key Value types. Paid databases never pause.
Which databases this applies to
It is a property of the database type you chose, not of your account.
| Free database types | Pause after 7 days with no queries |
| Paid database types | Never pause |
| Key Value with no on-disk storage | Never pauses |
A paid database runs all the time. That is part of what you are paying for, and it applies per database: paying for one does not change any other.
A Key Value database that keeps nothing on disk is never paused either, whatever type it is on. There is nothing to come back to — stopping it would lose the contents, and no policy about unused resources is worth that.
How “idle” is measured
By work, not by connections. Voroa counts the queries and commands your database actually runs. An application that holds an open connection but sends nothing is idle; an application that connects, runs one query an hour and disconnects is not.
Voroa’s own housekeeping does not count. The nightly backup and the monitoring that reads your storage and memory figures are excluded on purpose, so they cannot make a database that nobody is using look busy.
What happens, in order
- You get an email a day before, after 6 days with no queries, naming the database, so a pause is never the first you hear of it.
- A fresh backup is taken and confirmed complete. This always happens before anything is stopped. If the backup does not succeed, the database is not paused.
- The database is stopped. Your dashboard shows it as Paused, with the date.
- It stays paused until you resume it. Nothing is deleted because of a pause: the database and its data stay on disk for as long as it is paused.
A free database can also be stopped for a different reason: when its workspace has used its monthly free hours. That stop is shown as Paused: free hours used, takes no backup, and ends by itself - the database starts again from 12 midnight IST on the 1st. See Free instances.
What is kept
- All of your data. Pausing stops the database; it does not touch the disk it is stored on.
- The fresh backup taken as part of the pause, for 7 days - the same retention as any other database backup. After that the backup expires, but your data does not: it is still on the database’s own disk, waiting for you to resume.
- Your connection details. The address, database name, user and password are unchanged, so your application needs no edit — it will connect again as soon as you resume.
- Your settings: extensions, database users, storage limit, trusted sources.
Resuming
Open the database in your dashboard and choose Resume. It starts on the same disk with the same data. Starting takes a few seconds, the same as any restart.
While a database is paused, applications trying to reach it are refused a connection. That is what being stopped means, and it is the signal that tells you to resume it.
Paused is not suspended
These are two different things and Voroa never uses the same word for both.
| Paused | Nobody used the database for a long time. Nothing is owed. Resume it whenever you like. |
| Suspended | A payment did not go through. Reactivation happens on the billing page. |
If your database says Paused, there is nothing to pay and nothing to fix.
How to avoid it
- Use the database. Any real query resets the clock.
- Move it to a paid type. Paid databases never pause.
- Do not point an uptime monitor at it to keep it awake. A connection that runs no queries does not count as use, so it will not work — and a query on a timer for the sole purpose of keeping a free database awake is a use of shared capacity we would rather you spent on a paid database.