# Collections

For general information on collections, please see [Understanding Collections](https://docs.pinecone.io/guides/indexes/pods/understanding-collections)

Collections are archived copy of the records stored in a pod-based index. Records in a collection cannot be directly queried or modified.
Some use-cases for collections are:

- Creating multiple indexes from the same data in order to experiment with different index configurations
- Making a backup of your data
- Temporarily shutting down an index

## Create collection

The following example creates the collection `example-collection` from a pod index named `example-index`.

```python
from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key='<<PINECONE_API_KEY>>')

pc.create_collection(
    name="example-collection",
    source="example-index"
)
```

## List collections

The following example returns a list of the collections in the current project.

```python
from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key='<<PINECONE_API_KEY>>')

active_collections = pc.list_collections()
```

## Describe a collection

The following example returns a description of the collection
`example-collection`.

```python
from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key='<<PINECONE_API_KEY>>')

collection_description = pc.describe_collection("example-collection")
```

## Delete a collection

The following example deletes the collection `example-collection`.

```python
from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key='<<PINECONE_API_KEY>>')

pc.delete_collection("example-collection")
```

## Creating an index from a collection