By defining maintenance windows in advance, you prevent false alerts during planned work and keep your team focused on real incidents.
Why Maintenance Windows Matter
Without maintenance windows, planned downtime creates problems:
- Alert fatigue — Your team gets paged for expected outages, reducing trust in the alerting system
- Skewed statistics — Planned maintenance counts against your uptime metrics
- Poor communication — Users see incidents on your status page that aren't really incidents
Maintenance windows solve these issues by telling Uptime when downtime is intentional.
Prevent False Alerts
When a monitor is in a maintenance window with alert suppression enabled, Uptime continues checking the service but won't send alerts. Your team stays focused on real problems instead of dismissing expected outages.
Communicate with Users
Maintenance windows can be displayed on your public status page, letting users know about planned work before it happens. This reduces support tickets and builds trust through transparency.
Keep Accurate Statistics
Checks during maintenance windows can be excluded from uptime calculations, so your metrics reflect actual service reliability rather than planned maintenance events.
Configuration Options
When creating a maintenance window, you can configure the following options.
Name
A descriptive name for the maintenance window, such as "Database migration" or "Weekly infrastructure updates". This name appears in alerts, on status pages, and in maintenance history.
Monitor Selection
Choose which monitors this maintenance window applies to:
- All monitors — The window applies to your entire infrastructure
- Specific monitors — Select individual monitors that will be affected
Use specific monitors when only some services will be impacted. For example, if you're upgrading a database server, apply the window only to monitors that depend on that database.
Start Time
The date and time when the maintenance window begins. You can schedule maintenance windows in advance—set them up days or weeks before the actual work.
Duration
How long the maintenance window lasts. Available durations:
- 15 minutes
- 30 minutes
- 1 hour
- 2 hours
- 4 hours
- 8 hours
Choose a duration that covers your expected maintenance plus some buffer time. You can always end early if you finish ahead of schedule.
Suppress Alerts
When enabled, no alerts are sent for monitors covered by this maintenance window. Uptime still performs checks and records results, but your team won't be notified.
Keep this enabled for routine maintenance. Disable it only if you want to monitor the maintenance process itself and get alerts if something goes unexpectedly wrong.
Show on Status Page
When enabled, the maintenance window appears on your public status page. Users see:
- Upcoming maintenance with the scheduled time
- Active maintenance while work is in progress
- The maintenance name and affected services
Enable this for any user-facing maintenance. Disable it for internal work that doesn't affect user experience.
Recurring Maintenance
For regular maintenance schedules, you can set up recurring windows:
- Daily
- Weekly (select specific days)
- Monthly (select specific dates)
Recurring windows are useful for:
- Weekly deployment windows
- Nightly backup windows
- Monthly patching schedules
Each occurrence creates a separate maintenance window instance that you can end early or modify independently.
Maintenance States
Maintenance windows move through three states.
Upcoming
The maintenance window is scheduled but hasn't started yet. During this state:
- The window appears on status pages (if configured)
- Monitors operate normally and send alerts
- You can edit or delete the window
Active
The maintenance window is currently in progress. During this state:
- Alerts are suppressed (if configured)
- Status pages show maintenance in progress
- Uptime continues monitoring and recording check results
- You can end the window early
Past
The maintenance window has ended. Past windows:
- Are kept in your maintenance history
- Can be reviewed for auditing purposes
- Show which checks occurred during the window
Ending Maintenance Early
If you complete maintenance ahead of schedule, use the "End Early" option to:
- Resume normal alerting immediately
- Update status pages to show services are operational
- Accurately reflect the actual maintenance duration
Don't leave maintenance windows running longer than necessary. Ending early ensures you're alerted to any real issues that might occur after maintenance completes.
Best Practices
Always Schedule Before Work Begins
Create maintenance windows before starting planned work, not during. This ensures:
- Status pages are updated before users notice downtime
- Your team knows not to respond to expected alerts
- Maintenance is documented in your history
Enable Status Page Visibility
For any maintenance that affects users, enable "Show on status page". Proactive communication:
- Reduces support ticket volume
- Builds user trust
- Demonstrates operational maturity
Use the End Early Feature
When maintenance completes, end the window immediately. This:
- Restores normal monitoring and alerting
- Shows users that services are back online
- Keeps your maintenance records accurate
Set Up Recurring Windows for Regular Maintenance
If you have scheduled maintenance periods (weekly deployments, nightly backups), create recurring windows. This:
- Reduces manual work
- Ensures maintenance is never forgotten
- Provides consistent communication to users
Apply to Specific Monitors When Possible
If only some services are affected, select specific monitors rather than applying to all:
- Other services remain fully monitored
- Status pages accurately reflect what's affected
- Uptime metrics stay precise
Next Steps
- Understanding Monitors — Learn about the different monitor types
- Understanding Alerts — Configure how you get notified
- Status Pages — Communicate service status to your users