Syncovery Support Forum

Hi, I am evaluating the new version of Syncovery and a requirement for my backups is the possibility of keeping versions for a limited amount of time.
Syncovery does not (yet?) support such a feature and I know the workaround is to create a "cleaner" profile to delete old versions, but I face two problems:

• the source folder must be empty, but how to ensure that, especially in unattended mode? It would be useful to empty a folder before running the profile but I found no option in Syncovery to do that - I also tried to add a DOS command in the before field (even if I'd like to have an explicit option) but that does not seem to work - dos commands throw errors, maybe they must be wrapped with cmd or something?

• I found no way of setting the time limit: the age filter allow to filter files older that a specific amount of time using creation or modified or last access date but the problem is that when Syncovery creates a version or move a deleted file into the older folder, no date of the file is changed, so "delete old versions or deleted files that have been archived more than X" seems not to be possible. If an old file is versioned, the version has all old timestamps and so the cleaner profile would delete it immediately after it was created and not after a specific time.

How to set the program to keep versions for a specific time after they have been created? A new option of the program that updates last access date of versions and deleted files when they are archived?
thanks a lot

Giuse

Hello,
I will add such a setting soon. I don't think it's worth trying to implement it with some workarounds in the meantime.

Thanks a lot, I'll wait for it

Hi, this feature is not yet available, am I right? Not to bother, just to know, thanks

Giuse

Hi Tobias, after 5 months I can't find this option available in latest version of Syncovery, am I missing something?
thanks

Giuse

Sorry for the delay, I will add it this week.

thanks

Hi,
I am trying to get around having to make Syncovery remember the date when a file was archived.

Assuming you run the job at least daily, an old version will be archived shortly after a new version appears. So the new version's date is actually the archive date for the old version (approximately).

Let's talk about keeping older versions for 90 days as an example.

So we can just say, if the newer version becomes older than 90 days, the older version can be deleted.

If you keep several versions, the same logic can be applied to all older versions. Each older version can be deleted if the next version becomes older than 90 days.

Would that be OK, what do you think?

And for jobs that run weekly or monthly, you just have to add 7 or 30 to the number 90, to ensure that no older version are deleted early.

hi, yes, it is ok, but it think it should be made "compatible" with what happens with deleted files, imagine this sequence:
-) file X is changed
-) 1st backup run: a new version of X is created with archived time set to now
-) file X is changed again
-) 2nd backup run: we have now 2 versions, let's assume the expiration period of 1st version has not come so no version is deleted.
-) file X is deleted by mistake and
-) 3rd backup is run: if both versions are deleted or just the last one, it may be a problem, since the backup cannot be used to restore the situation in the past with 1st version.
In other words, I think the program should be configurable such as we set an expiration time that preserve previous versions and deleted file back to that expiration time.
Did I explain clearly?
thanks

Giuse

Hi,
OK, well deletions have to be considered too, but I will take it one step at a time for now.

Concerning deletions, you have the option to Delete Older Versions Permanently (immediately) or keep them all in the folder for deleted files. These settings are under Files->Deletions.

I will add separate options for cleaning up the folder for deleted files.