diff --git a/conf/defaults.ini b/conf/defaults.ini
index 8daf5ef4a88..b52599aab85 100644
--- a/conf/defaults.ini
+++ b/conf/defaults.ini
@@ -1559,7 +1559,8 @@ enabled = true
 
 #################################### Short Links #############################
 [short_links]
-# Short links which are never accessed will be deleted as cleanup. Time is in days. Default is 7 days. Max is 365. 0 means they will be deleted approximately every 10 minutes.
+# Short links that are never accessed will be deleted as cleanup. Time is set up in days. The default is 7 days. Maximum value is 365.
+# 0 means they will be deleted approximately every 10 minutes. A negative value (such as -1) will disable expiration.
 expire_time = 7
 
 #################################### Internal Grafana Metrics ############
diff --git a/docs/sources/setup-grafana/configure-grafana/_index.md b/docs/sources/setup-grafana/configure-grafana/_index.md
index de2e43e06c3..a623d95d122 100644
--- a/docs/sources/setup-grafana/configure-grafana/_index.md
+++ b/docs/sources/setup-grafana/configure-grafana/_index.md
@@ -1872,7 +1872,11 @@ Configures settings around the short link feature.
 
 ### expire_time
 
-Short links which are never accessed are considered expired or stale, and will be deleted as cleanup. Set the expiration time in days. Default is `7` days. Maximum is `365` days, and setting above the maximum will have `365` set instead. Setting `0` means the short links will be cleaned up approximately every 10 minutes.
+Short links that are never accessed are considered expired or stale and will be deleted as cleanup. Set the expiration time in days. The default is `7` days. The maximum is `365` days, and setting above the maximum will have `365` set instead. Setting `0` means the short links will be cleaned up approximately every 10 minutes. A negative value such as `-1` will disable expiry.
+
+{{< admonition type="caution" >}}
+Short links without an expiration increase the size of the database and can’t be deleted.
+{{< /admonition >}}
 
 <hr>
 
diff --git a/pkg/services/cleanup/cleanup.go b/pkg/services/cleanup/cleanup.go
index 7604a402017..240bcf532fd 100644
--- a/pkg/services/cleanup/cleanup.go
+++ b/pkg/services/cleanup/cleanup.go
@@ -103,12 +103,15 @@ func (srv *CleanUpService) clean(ctx context.Context) {
 		{"delete expired images", srv.deleteExpiredImages},
 		{"cleanup old annotations", srv.cleanUpOldAnnotations},
 		{"expire old user invites", srv.expireOldUserInvites},
-		{"delete stale short URLs", srv.deleteStaleShortURLs},
 		{"delete stale query history", srv.deleteStaleQueryHistory},
 		{"expire old email verifications", srv.expireOldVerifications},
 		{"cleanup trash dashboards", srv.cleanUpTrashDashboards},
 	}
 
+	if srv.Cfg.ShortLinkExpiration > 0 {
+		cleanupJobs = append(cleanupJobs, cleanUpJob{"delete stale short URLs", srv.deleteStaleShortURLs})
+	}
+
 	logger := srv.log.FromContext(ctx)
 	logger.Debug("Starting cleanup jobs", "jobs", fmt.Sprintf("%v", cleanupJobs))