diff --git a/changelog/7911.bugfix.rst b/changelog/7911.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..5b85b20b5bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/7911.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Directories created by `tmpdir` are now considered stale after 3 days without modification (previous value was 3 hours) to avoid deleting directories still in use in long running test suites.
diff --git a/src/_pytest/pathlib.py b/src/_pytest/pathlib.py
index 355281039fd..dda86d6beba 100644
--- a/src/_pytest/pathlib.py
+++ b/src/_pytest/pathlib.py
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
 __all__ = ["Path", "PurePath"]
 
 
-LOCK_TIMEOUT = 60 * 60 * 3
+LOCK_TIMEOUT = 60 * 60 * 24 * 3
 
 
 _AnyPurePath = TypeVar("_AnyPurePath", bound=PurePath)