Backup Retention Policy

Configure how long Cloudback keeps your repository backups with customizable retention policies, helping you manage storage efficiently.

Cloudback allows you to set up a backup retention policy for your repositories. The retention policy defines how long the backups should be kept before they are automatically deleted. Retention policies apply to all supported platforms.

How Retention Works

A retention policy has two enforcement dimensions that both apply to every backup definition:

Age limit: backups older than the configured number of days are deleted.
Count limit: when the number of successful backups exceeds the configured maximum, the oldest backups are removed first.

Both limits are checked independently. A backup is removed if it violates either limit.

Deduplication protection

Backups that serve as a deduplication parent (referenced by one or more newer backups) are never deleted, even if they exceed the configured limits. This ensures that backups referencing a parent archive always remain valid.

Enforcement timing

Retention is enforced hourly by a background maintenance job. Changing a retention policy does not delete backups immediately - the change takes effect at the next hourly enforcement pass.

Available Retention Presets

Cloudback includes the following built-in retention policies, available to all accounts:

Policy	Age Limit	Count Limit
Last 30 days	30 days	200 backups
Last 90 days	90 days	270 backups
Last 180 days	180 days	540 backups
Last 360 days	360 days	1080 backups

The default policy for new accounts and new repositories is Last 30 days.

Setting Up a Backup Retention Policy

Follow these steps to set a retention policy for a repository:

Go to the Cloudback Dashboard.
Open the repository details page for the repository you want to configure.
In the Settings section, locate the Retention combo box and choose the retention policy you want to apply to the repository:

Click the Save button to save the changes.

You can update the retention policy for multiple repositories at once using Bulk Operations.

Custom Retention Policies

If the built-in presets don't cover your use case, you can request a custom retention policy with specific age and count limits.

Custom retention policies can't be created from the UI. To request one, contact the Cloudback support team at support@cloudback.it with your desired age limit (in days) and count limit. Custom policies are usually set up within one business day.

Once created, your custom retention policy will appear in the Retention dropdown alongside the built-in presets - both in the repository settings and in Account Settings. The support team can also restrict a custom policy to specific platform accounts.

Account-Level Default Retention

The Account Settings page lets you configure a default retention policy that is applied automatically to all new repositories added to your account. Changing the account-level default does not affect repositories that already have a retention policy assigned - use Bulk Operations to update existing repositories.