## Transient tables

Snowflake supports the creation of [transient tables](https://docs.snowflake.net/manuals/user-guide/tables-temp-transient.html). Snowflake does not preserve a history for these tables, which can result in a measurable reduction of your Snowflake storage costs. Transient tables participate in time travel to a limited degree with a retention period of 1 day by default with no fail-safe period. Weigh these tradeoffs when deciding whether or not to configure your dbt models as `transient`. **By default, all Snowflake tables created by dbt are `transient`.**

### Configuring transient tables in dbt_project.yml

A whole folder (or package) can be configured to be transient (or not) by adding a line to the `dbt_project.yml` file. This config works just like all of the [model configs](/reference/model-configs) defined in `dbt_project.yml`.

<File name='dbt_project.yml'>

```yaml
name: my_project

...

models:
  +transient: false
  my_project:
    ...
```

</File>

### Configuring transience for a specific model

A specific model can be configured to be transient by setting the `transient` model config to `true`.

<File name='my_table.sql'>

```sql
{{ config(materialized='table', transient=true) }}

select * from ...
```

</File>