Automatic backups are not being pruned despite additional retention rules

[AlaneParticipant]

Hi there, I have read the explanation on the https://updraftplus.com/faqs/what-is-the-add-an-additional-retention-rule-option/ page and set additional retention rules to for backups older than 1 week keep no more than 1 backup for every week. Automatic backups are ignoring this and stacking up on the server – I had one account with 161 backups that ran out of space on the server. How can I stop this? This inability to prune autobackups is a big problem, manually deleting them is time consuming and in the case of the 161 it has autoupdates so that is contributing the generating piles of auto backups.
Thank you!

[Bryle CroduaModerator]

Hi Alane,

Automatic backups are not included in any of the retention rules, as UpdraftPlus cannot guarantee that the imported backup sets don’t belong to a different site.

I’m afraid that you will have to manually delete these backups.

Kind Regards,
Bryle

[AlaneParticipant]

Thank you for responding. It’s a bit of an unsatisfying answer, especially because that is contrary to what the FAQ page about the additional retention rules claims:

When there are no extra retention rules, any automatic backup (i.e. a backup made before a plugin/theme/WordPress update – not to be confused with a scheduled backup) that is younger than the oldest scheduled backup will be kept. This changes if you have any extra retention rules. Any automatic backup that is older that the time period specified in a retention rule will be deleted – i.e., only automatic backups that are younger than the first rule will be kept.

Is the FAQ wrong?

In my search for ways to manage my out of control autobackups I also found this post which is very helpful – I did not realize this was a feature to be able to select multiple backups for deletion – https://updraftplus.com/deleting-multiple-backups/
Maybe the devs would consider adding a note on the existing backups panel about how to use that feature since it isn’t immediately evident?

[Dee NutbourneModerator]

Hi,

Apologies for the delay. I’m afraid that my colleague misread your issue.

The automatic backups should be included in the additional retention rules.
Please could you send us a copy of the latest backup log, and a screenshot of your retention rules?

The contents will be too long to post here directly, but you can use an online service such as Dropbox, and post the link here,

Best Wishes,
David N

[AlaneParticipant]

This reply has been marked as private.

[Dee NutbourneModerator]

Hi Alane,

Apologies for the delay.

It appears that the extra retention settings are not being applied.

Please could you delete your current extra retention settings and save? Then, set up the settings again (remembering to save again). This should ensure that the settings are saved in the database correctly.

Then, please could you take a test backup of the database only?
Are the extra backups pruned in this case?

Best Wishes,
David N

[AlaneParticipant]

Hi David,
I think that is doing the trick – ish? I will play around with it some more, it is pruning some things but leaving others (like the database backups are pruned but the file backups were not). I will work with my settings and report back – I have several sites to work with so many test cases to try.
Thanks!
Alane

[Dee NutbourneModerator]

Hi Alane,

Please note that the extra retention rules apply to each section of the backups separately.
This is to prevent full backups from being replaced by automatic backups that only contain one or two sections of the site.

Best Wishes,
David N

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