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The following diagram and steps describe the lifecycle of an Amazon SQS message, called Message A, from creation to deletion. Assume that a queue already exists.
Message Lifecycle
 | Component 1 sends Message A to a queue and the message is redundantly distributed across the SQS servers. |
 | When Component 2 is ready to process a message, it retrieves messages from the queue, and Message A is returned. While Message A is being processed, it remains in the queue and is not returned to subsequent receive requests for the duration of the visibility timeout. |
 | Component 2 deletes Message A from the queue to avoid the message being received and processed again once the visibility timeout expires. |
![[Note]](images/note.png) | Note |
|---|---|
SQS automatically deletes messages that have been in a queue for more than 4 days. |
