Context
When running a file or database backup, archive(s) will be created on your Storage for each Backup Log (also known as Backup run).
When are these files deleted?
These files are automatically deleted in 2 cases.
During the rotation process:
Based on the retention defined on your backups, we'll only keep the latest "X" files and automatically "rotate" the others.
This process is run after a successful backup is completed.During a "purge" process
The purge process occurs when you decide to purge (delete) all Backup files from a Backup or even from an entire Storage.
This means that you should never (except for the cases described below) have more files on storage for a given Backup than your retention number.
What are the exception and what should I do if it happens?
There are a few "edge" cases where you might end up with files not properly deleted.
When we try to rotate a Backup file we might encounter issues (Storage is not reachable, the file is not readable or present...), in this case, we'll try to delete these files again 3 times (in total).
When running a Backup and encounters an issue we try to run it up to 3 times.
During this process, some "backup runs" might generate partial files that have to be purged.
Same as for the rotation process this might take some time and depend on the cases might have to be tried multiple times.
While rotation and purge are done almost instantly (will depend on the load), retries might take longer and will in the worst case be retried at the next completed backup run.
If we haven't been able to delete them after 3 tries, we'll update their status and you'll be alerted.