Short-Term Retention Policy

Restore points in the backup chain are not kept forever. They are removed according to the retention policy. The short-term retention policy helps maintain the life cycle of restore points and make sure that backup files do not consume the whole disk space.

Short-term retention policy depends on the edition of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows:

• In the Free and Workstation editions, Veeam Agent retains restore points for a certain number of days. To learn more, see Retention Policy in Free and Workstation Editions.
• In the Server edition, you can select the logic behind the short-term retention policy. Veeam Agent can retain restore points for a certain number of days or retains a certain number of latest restore points that is defined by the user. To learn more, see Retention Policy in Server Edition.

You can also specify the retention policy for outdated backups — backups for which Veeam Agent does not create new restore points within a specified time period. To learn more, see Retention Policy for Outdated Backups.