SOLVED: How To Change Soft Deletes to Hard Deletes in Azure

Azure Soft Delete a way to protect backup data from accidental or malicious deletion.  Put simply, if you delete something like a Virtual Machine.  It will be kept in Soft Delete for 14 days.  You can think of Soft Delete as self emptying recycle bin.

Soft Delete is on by default for all new vaults, but might be off on older vaults.  Disabling Soft Delete is is not recommended by Microsoft.  They say:

The only circumstance where you should consider disabling soft delete is if you’re planning on moving your protected items to a new vault, and can’t wait the 14 days required before deleting and reprotecting (such as in a test environment).   SOURCE

However, we have a different use case and we want items we delete to be deleted immediately.  That use case is a test lab.

Disable Azure SOFT DELETE feature using the Azure Portal

In this video show you how to turn Azure Soft Delete on or off as you choose.

Disable Azure SOFT DELETE feature using PowerShell:

1. Open a PowerShell (ADMIN) and type
2. Install-Module -Name Az.RecoveryServices -Force
3. Set-AzRecoveryServicesVaultProperty -VaultId $myVaultID -SoftDeleteFeatureState Disable