Cleaning up backups, backup versions, and replicas

Every time you run a backup operation, manually or on a schedule, Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office creates a new backup version in the backup location.

When you want to delete backup versions that you no longer need, use the tools provided in the application. If you delete backup version files outside Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office, for example in File Explorer, this will result in errors during operations with the backups.

Versions of the following backups cannot be deleted manually:

  • Backups stored on CD, DVD, BD, or Acronis Secure Zone
  • Nonstop backups
  • Notarized backups

Nonstop backup retention rules

When you back up files and folders to Acronis Cloud, you can select the nonstop scheduling setting. Refer to Scheduling for details.

Because Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office permanently monitors the backed-up data and uploads the changes to Acronis Cloud, the backup could consume storage space quite fast. To reduce the number of backup versions and optimize the cloud space consumption, Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office keeps only the following backup versions:

  • All versions for the last hour
  • The first versions of every hour for the last 24 hours
  • The first version of every day for the last week
  • The first version of every week for the last month
  • The first version of every month

All other versions are automatically deleted. The retention rules are pre-set and cannot be changed.

Replica retention rules

Every time you run a backup operation that has replication turned on, Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office creates a new backup version locally and a new replica version in the cloud. Sometimes the number of replica versions is slightly less that the number of the backup versions; that is done to optimize your Internet usage. Nevertheless, the replicas may take quite a lot of space. To save space, use the replica retention rules:

  1. In the Backup section, click the required backup, and then click Settings in the lower-right corner.
  2. Click Settings, choose Replication.

You can set a limit on the number of replica versions. In addition to the number of replicas, you can limit their age. Select the Delete versions older than check box, and then specify how long to store a version. All versions that are older than the specified period will be automatically deleted.

To delete an entire backup and its replica

In the Backup section, right-click the backup with the replica to delete, and then click Delete backup and replica.

Depending on the backup type, this command completely deletes the backup from its location, or allows you to choose whether you want to delete the backup completely or delete the backup box only. When you delete a backup box only, the backup files remain in the location and you will be able to add the backup to the list later. Note that if you delete a backup completely, the deletion cannot be undone.

When you delete a backup, its replica is deleted automatically. You cannot delete a local backup and still save its replica. However, you can delete a replica alone and keep the corresponding local backup.

To delete a replica without deleting the backup, in the Backup section, right-click the backup with the replica to delete, and then click Delete replica only.

To configure cleanup settings

  1. In the Backup section, click the required backup, and then click Settings in the lower-right corner.
  2. Select the Cleanup tab and configure the cleanup settings.

By default, Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office stores 20 recent versions. When you create the twenty-first version, Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office automatically deletes the oldest version of the backup. You can set a different limit on the number of backup versions.