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How to purge unhealthy workflow instances in Adobe Experience Manager

Last update: October 16, 2026

This article explains how to identify and purge a large number of unhealthy workflow instances in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) environments to maintain optimal system performance.

Description description

Environment

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), all supported versions.

Issue/Symptoms

A buildup of unhealthy or completed workflow instances in AEM can degrade system health and impact the responsiveness of the Workflow Instances UI. This scenario can occur in any AEM environment and is often observed when the Workflow Instances UI displays a high number of workflows with the status Unhealthy and a large volume of completed workflow instances. Regular maintenance and purging of old workflow instances is recommended to ensure optimal system operation.

  • The Workflow Instances UI displays a large number of workflows with the status Unhealthy.
  • The system health status may be degraded.
  • A high number of completed workflow instances is present in the system.

Cause

A buildup of completed and unhealthy workflow instances can degrade AEM environment health and UI performance. Regularly purging completed workflows helps maintain optimal system operation.

Resolution resolution

Follow the steps to resolve the issue:

  1. Access the Workflow Instances UI:

    • Log in to your AEM environment.
    • Navigate to Tools > Workflow > Instances to review the number and status of running and completed workflows.

  2. Determine your retention policy:

    • Decide how long completed workflow instances should be retained. For example, keep only workflows completed within the last two days.

  3. Purge completed workflow instances:

    • Use the workflow purge functionality to remove completed workflow instances older than your retention period.
    • In AEM as a Cloud Service, configure a workflow purge maintenance task through the Operations Dashboard or OSGi configuration.
    • In AEM on-premise or AMS, use the Workflow Purge Scheduler in the Web Console (OSGi) to set up a scheduled purge task.

  4. Validate environment health:

    • After purging, return to the Workflow Instances UI and confirm that the number of unhealthy workflows has decreased and the environment health status has improved.

  5. Schedule regular workflow purges (recommended):

    • Configure a scheduled workflow purge task to prevent recurrence and maintain system health. Refer to the official Adobe documentation for guidance on configuring workflow purge tasks for your AEM version.
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