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.TH "BORG-PRUNE" "1" "2025-12-01" "" "borg backup tool"
.SH NAME
borg-prune \- Prune repository archives according to specified rules
.SH SYNOPSIS
.sp
borg [common options] prune [options] [REPOSITORY]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.sp
The prune command prunes a repository by deleting all archives not matching
any of the specified retention options.
.sp
Important: Repository disk space is \fBnot\fP freed until you run \fBborg compact\fP\&.
.sp
This command is normally used by automated backup scripts wanting to keep a
certain number of historic backups. This retention policy is commonly referred to as
GFS <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_rotation_scheme#Grandfather-father-son>

(Grandfather\-father\-son) backup rotation scheme.
.sp
Also, prune automatically removes checkpoint archives (incomplete archives left
behind by interrupted backup runs) except if the checkpoint is the latest
archive (and thus still needed). Checkpoint archives are not considered when
comparing archive counts against the retention limits (\fB\-\-keep\-X\fP).
.sp
If a prefix is set with \-P, then only archives that start with the prefix are
considered for deletion and only those archives count towards the totals
specified by the rules.
Otherwise, \fIall\fP archives in the repository are candidates for deletion!
There is no automatic distinction between archives representing different
contents. These need to be distinguished by specifying matching prefixes.
.sp
If you have multiple sequences of archives with different data sets (e.g.
from different machines) in one shared repository, use one prune call per
data set that matches only the respective archives using the \-P option.
.sp
The \fB\-\-keep\-within\fP option takes an argument of the form \(dq<int><char>\(dq,
where char is \(dqH\(dq, \(dqd\(dq, \(dqw\(dq, \(dqm\(dq, \(dqy\(dq. For example, \fB\-\-keep\-within 2d\fP means
to keep all archives that were created within the past 48 hours.
\(dq1m\(dq is taken to mean \(dq31d\(dq. The archives kept with this option do not
count towards the totals specified by any other options.
.sp
A good procedure is to thin out more and more the older your backups get.
As an example, \fB\-\-keep\-daily 7\fP means to keep the latest backup on each day,
up to 7 most recent days with backups (days without backups do not count).
The rules are applied from secondly to yearly, and backups selected by previous
rules do not count towards those of later rules. The time that each backup
starts is used for pruning purposes. Dates and times are interpreted in
the local time zone, and weeks go from Monday to Sunday. Specifying a
negative number of archives to keep means that there is no limit. As of Borg
1.2.0, Borg will retain the oldest archive if any of the secondly, minutely,
hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly rules was not otherwise
able to meet its retention target. This enables the first chronological archive
to continue aging until it is replaced by a newer archive that meets the
retention criteria.
.sp
The \fB\-\-keep\-13weekly\fP and \fB\-\-keep\-3monthly\fP rules are two different
strategies for keeping archives every quarter year.
.sp
The \fB\-\-keep\-last N\fP option is doing the same as \fB\-\-keep\-secondly N\fP (and it will
keep the last N archives under the assumption that you do not create more than one
backup archive in the same second).
.sp
When using \fB\-\-stats\fP, you will get some statistics about how much data was
deleted \- the \(dqDeleted data\(dq deduplicated size there is most interesting as
that is how much your repository will shrink.
Please note that the \(dqAll archives\(dq stats refer to the state after pruning.
.SH OPTIONS
.sp
See \fIborg\-common(1)\fP for common options of Borg commands.
.SS arguments
.INDENT 0.0
.TP
.B REPOSITORY
repository to prune
.UNINDENT
.SS options
.INDENT 0.0
.TP
.B  \-n\fP,\fB  \-\-dry\-run
do not change repository
.TP
.B  \-\-force
force pruning of corrupted archives, use \fB\-\-force \-\-force\fP in case \fB\-\-force\fP does not work.
.TP
.B  \-s\fP,\fB  \-\-stats
print statistics for the deleted archive
.TP
.B  \-\-list
output verbose list of archives it keeps/prunes
.TP
.BI \-\-keep\-within \ INTERVAL
keep all archives within this time interval
.TP
.B  \-\-keep\-last\fP,\fB  \-\-keep\-secondly
number of secondly archives to keep
.TP
.B  \-\-keep\-minutely
number of minutely archives to keep
.TP
.B  \-H\fP,\fB  \-\-keep\-hourly
number of hourly archives to keep
.TP
.B  \-d\fP,\fB  \-\-keep\-daily
number of daily archives to keep
.TP
.B  \-w\fP,\fB  \-\-keep\-weekly
number of weekly archives to keep
.TP
.B  \-m\fP,\fB  \-\-keep\-monthly
number of monthly archives to keep
.TP
.B  \-\-keep\-13weekly
number of quarterly archives to keep (13 week strategy)
.TP
.B  \-\-keep\-3monthly
number of quarterly archives to keep (3 month strategy)
.TP
.B  \-y\fP,\fB  \-\-keep\-yearly
number of yearly archives to keep
.TP
.B  \-\-save\-space
work slower, but using less space
.TP
.BI \-c \ SECONDS\fR,\fB \ \-\-checkpoint\-interval \ SECONDS
write checkpoint every SECONDS seconds (Default: 1800)
.UNINDENT
.SS Archive filters
.INDENT 0.0
.TP
.BI \-P \ PREFIX\fR,\fB \ \-\-prefix \ PREFIX
only consider archive names starting with this prefix. (deprecated)
.TP
.BI \-a \ GLOB\fR,\fB \ \-\-glob\-archives \ GLOB
only consider archive names matching the glob. sh: rules apply (without actually using the sh: prefix), see \(dqborg help patterns\(dq.
.UNINDENT
.SH EXAMPLES
.sp
Be careful: prune is a potentially dangerous command; it will remove backup
archives.
.sp
By default, prune applies to \fBall archives in the repository\fP unless you
restrict its operation to a subset of the archives using \fB\-\-glob\-archives\fP\&.
When using \fB\-\-glob\-archives\fP, be careful to choose a good matching pattern —
for example, do not use \(dqfoo*\(dq if you do not also want to match \(dqfoobar\(dq.
.sp
It is strongly recommended to always run \fBprune \-v \-\-list \-\-dry\-run ...\fP
first, so you can see what it would do without actually doing anything.
.INDENT 0.0
.INDENT 3.5
.sp
.EX
# Keep 7 end\-of\-day and 4 additional end\-of\-week archives.
# Do a dry\-run without actually deleting anything.
$ borg prune \-v \-\-list \-\-dry\-run \-\-keep\-daily=7 \-\-keep\-weekly=4 /path/to/repo

# Same as above but only apply to archive names starting with the hostname
# of the machine followed by a \(dq\-\(dq character:
$ borg prune \-v \-\-list \-\-keep\-daily=7 \-\-keep\-weekly=4 \-\-glob\-archives=\(aq{hostname}\-*\(aq /path/to/repo
# Actually free disk space:
$ borg compact /path/to/repo

# Keep 7 end\-of\-day, 4 additional end\-of\-week archives,
# and an end\-of\-month archive for every month:
$ borg prune \-v \-\-list \-\-keep\-daily=7 \-\-keep\-weekly=4 \-\-keep\-monthly=\-1 /path/to/repo

# Keep all backups in the last 10 days, 4 additional end\-of\-week archives,
# and an end\-of\-month archive for every month:
$ borg prune \-v \-\-list \-\-keep\-within=10d \-\-keep\-weekly=4 \-\-keep\-monthly=\-1 /path/to/repo
.EE
.UNINDENT
.UNINDENT
.sp
There is also a visual example of pruning in \fBdocs/misc/prune\-example.txt\fP\&.
.SH SEE ALSO
.sp
\fIborg\-common(1)\fP, \fIborg\-compact(1)\fP
.SH AUTHOR
The Borg Collective
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