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Auto Cleanup Not working

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I have Acronis True Home installed and have it configured to clean up - store no more than 3 previous backups.  However, I repeated have to manually go into the folder and delete backups as the drive becomes full.  Is there some setting that I have misconfigured?  Does anyone have any idea?

Thanks

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Automatic cleanup

There can be lots of confusion around the topic of automatic cleanup which can be better understood if some basic concepts are known!

First:  automatic cleanup only works on complete(d) versions / version chains.  Do not expect individual elements of version chains to be cleaned up, such as incremental or differential files!

Second: automatic cleanup only runs after a new Full backup for the next version / version chain has been created successfully.  This means that there must be sufficient free space available on the storage drive / location to hold a new Full backup image file!

Third: counting of days does not start until after a new Full backup file has been created when using the option to ‘Delete versions / version chains older than X days.’  It does not start for the active backup version / version chain before that point!

Fourth: the simplest & easiest automatic cleanup option to use & understand is to ‘Store no more than X recent versions / version chains.’  The criteria here means that if you set X = 2, then when the X+1 (3rd) version / version chain is created successfully with a new Full backup file, then the oldest version / version chain will be deleted by automatic cleanup.

Example:

Incremental backup task, using Full plus 5 Incremental backups before next new Full backup.

Task scheduled to run daily with automatic cleanup set to ‘Store no more than 2 version chains.’

Day 1 – Full backup created.

Days 2 – 6 Incremental backups created.

Day 7 – Next new Full backup created. 

Days 8 – 12 Incremental backups created.

Day 13 – Next new Full backup created.  Automatic cleanup deletes files created on days 1 – 6.

If the same task used ‘Delete version chains older than 7 days’, then those 7 days wouldn’t start counting until day 7 for the first set of files (version chain 1) and not until day 13 for the second set etc.  So automatic cleanup wouldn’t delete the oldest chain until day 14 in the above example.

Steve.  THANK you so much for your explanation. I think I have asked this question a few times since 2016 and NO ONE has ever given me this explanation.  It REALLY Helps.

In my case, I am making full backups and have it set to cleanup after 3 versions.  If I understand what you are saying, there should never be more than 3 versions in my backup folder.  I currently have 4.  

I have attached screen shot of my Options page and my Backup Folder.  What am i missing.  

PS I don't know if the files were uploaded.  Tried 3 x but I don't see them in this message and the preview is not working.  

Chuck, not sure what is happening with image uploads in the forum at the moment, I had issues myself earlier today when trying to post a small screen shot and it just refused every time I tried!

For your settings, then the oldest full backup should have been deleted after the 4th backup was created successfully, so it is strange that it didn't happen!  There have been occasions where making changes to the backup task settings have looked to have reset the cleanup count.

I can only suggest using the Clean up versions tool to remove the unwanted earlier image file then see if automatic cleanup works correctly beyond that point.

Note: please check the size of the first file in your backup folder?  If the file has been resized down to only 12KB and you are running ATI 2020 or later to create .tibx files, then this is normal and the small file contains vital metadata used by the version chain and should never be deleted manually.

See the following KB documents published by Acronis with regards to .tibx files.

KB 63518: Acronis True Image 2020: do not delete first tibx file

KB 63227: Acronis True Image: Do not delete .TIB or .TIBX files outside of Acronis True Image

KB 63498: Acronis True Image 2020-2021: new tibx backup format FAQ

KB 63425: Acronis True Image: Limitations of tibx backups

KB 63516: Acronis True Image 2020: Incremental backups do not create separate files when using new backup format

KB 63445: Acronis True Image 2020: how to view and manage backup versions in new backup format

KB 63444: Acronis True Image 2020 and 2021: tibx backups in local destinations