Clean up a backup directory

From time to time you should delete obsolete files from your backup (or any other directory). Personal Backup offers the Cleanup function to perform this task automatically depending on file types and/or file age. Make sure that all files you plan to delete no longer exist in the source directory, otherwise they will be copied again during the next backup.
In addition, it is possible to delete files manually using any file manager of your choice.

Select the directory to be cleaned up

The directory from which you wish to delete files may be located on a local storage medium, on a Windows network drive or on a directory on an FTP server. Subdirectories are included automatically. By default, all files including any compressed (.gz) and encrypted (.enc) files will be deleted.

• Local or network directory: Clicking the button will open a dialog in which you can select the directory.
• FTP remote directory: Clicking the button will open a dialog in which you can configure the FTP server connection parameters (see here):
  
  After clicking the button, the program will connect to the FTP server and read the remote directory tree of the backup for the user to select a subdirectory.
  Note: In FTP mode not all of the following options are available.

Cleanup mode

• Files: All files in the selected directory and its subdirectories matching the given filter conditions will be deleted.
• Root directories: All files located in the root directories of the selected directory matching the given filter conditions will be deleted.
• Security copies: Only the security copies created during backup and matching the given filter conditions will be deleted.

File or directory filters

Using these filters will include or exclude filenames or directories matching certain conditions. The same rules are used as described for backup file filters (Standard file filter or Regular expressions). Clicking the button will open a dialog to edit the list of filters to be applied:

File or directory age

You can specify whether you want to delete only files or directories older or newer than a given fixed or relative date.

• Relative to actual date: older than the specified number of days, weeks, months or years
• Fixed date: older or newer than the given date

Type selection

The cleanup may be confined to selected types of files (filename extensions). You can select whether only the selected types or all but the selected types will be deleted. Clicking the button will open a dialog to edit the list of filters for file extensions. Extensions are specified without wildcards and dot.
 

Examine compressed single files

If the backup was made into single compressed files, enable this option to remove the additional extensions .gz/gze or zip in the file selection list (default setting: enabled).
 

Synchronize

This option is only available when deleting files. You can synchronize the backup directory with a source directory. All files not present at the source will be deleted from the backup directory. Additional restrictions can be made by means of selections concerning file types and age as described above. Possible settings are:

• Off - no synchronization, all files fitting the selections will be deleted.
  Additional option: If you wish, you can restrict file deletion so as to free up a given disk space (e.g. 100 MiB). In this case, the oldest of those files fitting the filter conditions for filenames and time slots required to free the specified disk space will be selected for deletion.
• With source directory - this option can only be used if the selected directory was processed by a backup using the default method Separate files - Separate directories for drives. In this case a separate subdirectory for each source drive has been created. By default these are named DrvC, DrvD, DrvE, etc. (see here).
  If the path of the selected directory contains one or several such drive indicators or the selected directory has subdirectories with such names, the associated source drives will automatically be determined. Click the button Settings to adjust the drive indicator if you used one for backup that differs from the default setting.
• With following directory - select a directory for synchronization

Security copies

If security copies were created during backup these files can be handled separately:

• On deleting files
  Specify the same settings you used for the security copies during backup to prevent these files from being deleted.
• on deleting security copies
  Specify the same settings you used for the security copies during backup to select only these files for deletion.

To facilitate this setting, you can click the very left button at the bottom to import the settings from the corresponding backup task. In both cases, you can select whether to handle only security copies from backup, from synchronization or both:

• Security copies created during backup
  The option Directory prefix is only required if the security copies were moved to separate directory. In this case the same prefix has to be specified as used on backup.
  The option Filename suffix must be selected if the security copies were not moved to a separate directory, but created by renaming. If placeholders were used on backup, clicking the appropriate button will insert the filter pattern needed to exclude these files. If a number of prior versions has been saved, use the upper right button to insert the counter placeholder (“#” character, e.g. bak-#).
  It is possible to make several entries separated by semicolons (e.g. bak;bak-#).
• Security copies created during synchronization
  The option Directory prefix must be set to the same settings used for the security copies on synchronization during backup. This will apply for directories that had to be deleted during synchronization as well as for the optional selectable directory used to move files to be deleted.
  The option Filename suffix is only required if the security copies were not moved to a separate directory, but created by renaming.
  If placeholders were used on backup, clicking the appropriate button will insert the filter pattern needed to exclude these files.

Special option when deleting security copies

Check this option in case you wish permanently to delete security copies (files and directories) created during a backup when this dates back beyond a certain time (e.g. 6 months previously). To do this, on creating the security copies it is necessary to insert the placeholder for the backup date at the end of the suffixes for files and/or directories. This date is being simultaneously the creation date of the security copies. During cleanup this date will be checked and, if older than the given date, the affected files and/or directories will be deleted. All other security copies and of course all normal files will be retained.
Entries for the directory prefixes are not required in this case, only filename suffixes must be specified in the settings (see above). Bear in mind that you must insert exactly the same value as has been used for backup. In addition you can select on which type of security copy (previous versions or on synchronization deleted versions) the deletion will be applied.

Options:

Retain empty directories - If this option is selected, empty directories remaining after deleting the selected files are not deleted, so that the complete directory structure is preserved. Otherwise, all empty subdirectories and, if also empty, the root directory (see also the following option) are also deleted.

Retain empty root directories - If the previous option is not selected, this can be used to specify that after deleting the selected files and subdirectories, an empty root directory will be retained.

Deleted files to recycle bin - files will not be irrecoverably deleted but moved to the Windows recycle bin so that you can recover them if needed. This function is not available with a network drive or FTP directory. Please note, that it is not possible to delete files with long path lengths (more than 260 characters) with this option.
 

Mail delivery after cleanup

As with backups, a mail with status information and optionally a log file can be sent after performing a cleanup task. The settings are the same as for backups.
 

Log settings

Clicking the button will open a dialog to adjust the log settings for the cleanup task.
Click then button to view the current log.
 

Load and save cleanup tasks

Clicking the or button will save a configured cleanup task with all settings to disk. To load and reuse such a saved task, click the button.

A saved cleanup task can also be started from the command line. It is therefore possible to use the Windows Task Scheduler function, for example, to remove old files from your backup periodically.

Automatic Cleanup using Windows Task Scheduler

You can configure a Windows scheduled task to carry out an automatic Cleanup by clicking the button. The configuration procedure is the same as described for backups.

Start cleanup

Clicking the button will start the cleanup. Before deleting any files, the program will create and display a list of all files that match the filter conditions. If the selection is incorrect, you can cancel the cleanup at this point and adjust your settings. It is also possible to select or deselect individual files or directories by tagging the checkboxes.

A right-click on a file opens a menu for further control. The selections required for an external file viewer and a file comparison program can be made by clicking the button:

• View file: If no specific viewer such as Lister.exe (see Total Commander package) has been selected, the Windows default file type settings will be used to start the associated program. Compressed or encrypted file will be processed beforehand.
• Compare file: You can use the open source program WinMerge for comparing files. Compressed or encrypted files will be processed before loading.