Cleaning up old backups

Over time the amount of backups and the storage needed to keep them will grow. At some point you are going to want to clean up old backups.

You can clean up your backups by running:

php artisan backup:clean

We'll tell you right off the bat that the package by default will never delete the youngest backup regardless it's size or age.

##Determining which backups should be deleted

This is the portion of the configuration that will determine which backups should be deleted.

//config/laravel-backup.php

    'cleanup' => [
        /*
         * The strategy that will be used to cleanup old backups.
         * The youngest backup wil never be deleted.
         */
        'strategy' => \Spatie\Backup\Tasks\Cleanup\Strategies\DefaultStrategy::class,

        'defaultStrategy' => [

            /*
             * The amount of days that all daily backups must be kept.
             */
            'keepAllBackupsForDays' => 7,

            /*
             * The amount of days that daily backups must be kept.
             */
            'keepDailyBackupsForDays' => 16,

            /*
             * The amount of weeks of which one weekly backup must be kept.
             */
            'keepWeeklyBackupsForWeeks' => 8,

            /*
             * The amount of months of which one monthly backup must be kept.
             */
            'keepMonthlyBackupsForMonths' => 4,

            /*
             * The amount of years of which one yearly backup must be kept
             */
            'keepYearlyBackupsForYears' => 2,

            /*
             * After clean up the backups remove the oldest backup until
             * this amount of megabytes is reached.
             */
            'deleteOldestBackupsWhenUsingMoreMegabytesThan' => 5000
        ]
    ],

This package provides an opinionated method to determine which old backups should be deleted. We call this the DefaultStrategy. This is how it works:

• Rule #1: it will never delete the youngest backup regardless of it's size or age
• Rule #2: it will keep all backups for the amount of days specified in keepAllBackupsForDays
• Rule #3: it'll only keep daily backups for the amount of days specified in keepDailyBackupsForDays for all backups older than those that rule #2 takes care of
• Rule #4: it'll only keep weekly backups for the amount of months specified in keepMonthlyBackupsForMonths for all backups older than those that rule #3 takes care of
• Rule #5: it'll only keep yearly backups for the amount of years specified in keepYearlyBackupsForYears for all backups older than those that rule #4 takes care of
• Rule #6: it will start deleting old backups until the used storage is lower than the number specified in deleteOldestBackupsWhenUsingMoreMegabytesThan.

Of course the numbers used in the default configuration can be adjusted to your own liking.

##Creating your own strategy

If you are not happy with the DefaultStrategy, you can create your own custom strategy. You can do so by extending the abstract class Spatie\Backup\Tasks\Cleanup\CleanupStrategy. You only need to implement this method:

use Spatie\Backup\BackupDestination\BackupCollection;

public function deleteOldBackups(BackupCollection $backupCollection)

The BackupCollection class is extended of Illuminate\Support\Collection and contains Spatie\Backup\BackupDestination\Backup-objects sorted by age. The youngest backup is the first one in the collection.

Using the collection, you can easily manually delete the oldest backup:

// Retrieve an instance of `Spatie\Backup\BackupDestination\Backup`
$backup = $backups->oldestBackup();

// Bye bye backup
$backup->delete();

Don't forget to specify the full classname of your custom strategy in the cleanup.strategy key in the laravel-backup config file.

##Getting notified when a cleanup goes wrong

You can receive a notification when a cleanup goes wrong. Read the section on notifications to know more.