No such option yet. Archives can only be deleted as a whole, but soon archive functionality will be reworked, so maybe we'll be able to implement some new things regarding that.

Thanks for the reply @Matt. I fixed my immediate problem by manually purging files from the archive which allowed the backup profile to execute which then performed the purge.

This functionality exists by clicking on the "Warning: x files will be deleted in x days" link as below...



...but there's no way to access it in the absence of that link. Is that correct?

You will always see the warning about file deletion in the plan unless you click "do not show next time", in that case the process will be performed automatically. Otherwise the data deletion can only be performed via the backup storage tab.

@Matt how do you implement data deletion from the backup storage tab? I can't see any way to trigger an automatic purge of deleted files

Automatic deletion of files in the cloud if they were deleted on source is triggered by using "delete files that have been deleted locally" option.

@Matt I must not be explaining this well as we appear to have gone full circle on the original post.

I know that you can engage this option for a plan. And in the event you do it will perform the purge automatically.

However. If you have a backup plan where the backup archive is full the plan crashes. You do not get to the point of automatic purge. You do not get a link that allows you to view files to be deleted in x amount of days. Hence there is no way I can see to trigger the purge of deleted items from the archive.

I understand what you are saying. Your storage is out of space and you want to be able to run the purge to free up space. Unfortunately, I do not think this is supported. Even if it were, the process might not remove any backup files because retention settings may be waiting for a new version to be backed up before the oldest version can be removed. I can only assume you're performing a local backup to disk. If that's the case, what you can do is delete the backup files you no longer need manually from the Backup Storage tab in the agent. If it's disk, you can use Windows Explorer to find the files you want removed easily, but you should not remove them from Explorer - please use the Backup Storage tab to remove any files to avoid having to sync the repository. Then you should be able to run a new backup with the freed up space. Did I get your question / issue correct?

Hi @David Gugick! Thanks for the reply. Yes, that's pretty much it.

When you have 'delete files that are deleted locally' enabled and the warning appears on the backup plan (assuming you haven't disabled the warning) you can click on it and it takes you to a simple UI which lists all the files that are flagged for deletion and how long until they are deleted from the archive.

In this UI you can choose to select all and force the file deletion there and then. This is the functionality I was after but there seems to be no way to utilise it without accessing this UI. And you can't access this UI except via the warning link. And you don't get the warning link if the plan crashes due to a lack of archive space.

Is there anything I can assist with your retention settings so you can more easily manage your backup storage. If you're running out of disk and it wasn't expected, maybe we can tweak things a bit.

Good question, Jan. I too would like to be able to manually launch the UI for file deletion. Hopefully such a feature will be implemented at some point.

A lot of options will be introduced with the new archive mode, so stay tuned for the updates.