Run QCBM Retention Cleanup Manually

Run Retention Cleanup applies QCBM's saved retention policy immediately without creating a new backup. It is useful after changing retention limits, when local backup storage needs cleanup, or when you want to verify that the retention engine can process eligible Backup Sets.

Retention cleanup is deliberately separate from scheduled backup creation. It removes only eligible old local Backup Sets according to Profile limits and also performs configured age-based cleanup for operational, export, and audit records.

Before Running Cleanup

Review the retention settings on the affected Backup Profiles first. A Profile can limit:

  • how many completed Backup Sets are retained, from 1 through 365;
  • how much local storage retained Backup Sets may consume, from 0 through 10,000 GB, where 0 means no size limit.

Only complete, verified Backup Sets are candidates for normal retention removal.

Run Retention Cleanup

  1. Open Components > QC Backup Manager > Backups.
  2. Find the Scheduled Backups card.
  3. Confirm Retention cleanup is enabled.
  4. Click Run Retention Cleanup.
  5. Read the result summary for the number of old Backup Sets removed, approximate space freed, skipped protected sets, and expired history records cleaned.
  6. Review Backup History and storage usage afterward.

The control requires QCBM scheduler-management permission and scheduled-backup feature access. The global scheduled-retention setting must also be enabled; a manual click does not bypass a deliberately disabled retention-cleanup setting.

How QCBM Chooses Backup Sets to Remove

QCBM evaluates eligible complete and verified Backup Sets for each Profile with the newest recovery point first. Count and local-size limits are then applied to older eligible sets.

For the size limit, QCBM protects the newest eligible Backup Set from being deleted merely because that one Backup Set is itself larger than the configured limit. The limit is applied to older retained sets after the newest recovery point.

Backup Sets QCBM Skips

Retention cleanup does not blindly delete every old row. QCBM skips Backup Sets that are currently protected by operational state, including sets that are:

  • locked by active work;
  • being exported;
  • staged or required by restore activity.

Those skips are reported so the administrator can distinguish a protected set from a retention-rule failure.

Retention Cleanup Does Not Create a Backup

The retention routine is intentionally independent from scheduled backup creation. Clicking Run Retention Cleanup does not run due Profiles and does not create a replacement Backup Set before deleting an old one.

Make sure you already have the recovery points you want to keep before forcing cleanup after a policy change.

Understand the Different Kinds of History

QCBM maintains a dedicated permanent backup-run ledger that powers Download Backup Log. That ledger is different from the operational tables that have configurable age limits.

Retention cleanup also applies the current Settings values for:

  • Operational logs/jobs retention — default 90 days;
  • Export history retention — default 180 days;
  • Audit history retention — default 365 days.

So it is accurate to say that the permanent backup-run ledger survives normal artifact retention, but it is not accurate to say that every QCBM log, job, export, or audit record is permanent.

Automatic Retention Uses the Same Policy

The canonical QC Backup Manager Retention Cleanup Joomla task runs daily by default. Manual cleanup invokes the same retention logic immediately; it is not a separate policy.

Verify the Result

After cleanup, confirm the newest required recovery points remain in Backup History and that protected/exporting/restore-staged sets were not removed. If space was the reason for cleanup, compare storage use before and after the run.

If nothing was deleted, that can be correct: the retained set count/size may already be within policy, or the older candidates may currently be protected from deletion.

Community Discussion

Want to compare workflows, share practical tips, or discuss how you use this QCBM feature? Visit the QC Backup Manager Community. For private support, bug reports, account-specific issues, or feature requests, use the QuantaCade support system.