# How to Configure Maintenance Mode

App Platform is a fully managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that deploys applications from Git repositories or container images. It automatically builds, deploys, and scales components while handling all underlying infrastructure.

Maintenance mode allows you to take your app offline for maintenance and serve a maintenance page to your users. While your app is in maintenance mode, users see a message on the app’s home page. This allows you to perform critical updates, database migrations, or other maintenance tasks without user traffic.

We continue to bill apps during maintenance.

You cannot configure a custom maintenance message at this time.

## Configure Maintenance Mode Using the App Spec

Configure maintenance mode by adding the `maintenance` object to the app spec at the app level, like this:

`app.yaml`

```yaml
maintenance:
  enabled: true
  offline_page_url: "https://example.com/index.html"
```

Use the `offline_page_url` field to specify a custom maintenance page to display to users. The page can be any valid URL on the internet. You can only specify a custom maintenance page using the app spec at this time.

You can either edit the app spec [directly in the control panel](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/update-app-spec/index.html.md#update-an-apps-spec-from-the-control-panel) or pass the updated spec file [via `doctl` or the API](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/update-app-spec/index.html.md#update-an-apps-spec-using-automation).

Once you have updated the app spec, the app is taken offline and a maintenance page is displayed on the app’s home page.

## Configure Maintenance Mode Using the Control Panel

To turn on maintenance mode, go to the [**Apps** page](https://cloud.digitalocean.com/apps), select your app, then click the **Settings** tab.

Scroll to the **Maintenance mode** section and click **Turn on**. In the **Maintenance Mode** window, enter the app’s name to confirm that you want to enable maintenance mode, then click **Turn on Maintenance Mode**. App Platform takes the app offline and displays a maintenance page on your app’s home page.

The maintenance page looks like this:

![The maintenance mode page served at the root of the app](https://docs.digitalocean.com/screenshots/app-platform/app-maintenance-page.51a9247400c728a7a3af6718386aaf64e99e155616db8255dd1cc29986a8bc5b.png)