Background Retention Job

Background retention job is a process that starts automatically every 24 hours and runs in the background. It consists of two parts: deleted agent retention and background GFS retention.

Deleted Agent Retention

Deleted agent retention is a process that detects and deletes outdated backup files according to Veeam Agent retention policy for outdated backups.

An outdated backup file is a backup file for which no new restore points were created and no new backup job sessions were started within the last N days, where N is the retention period specified in the Veeam Agent backup job settings.

For more information, see Retention Policy for Outdated Backups article in the Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows User Guide and Maintenance Settings article in the Veeam Agent Management Guide.

Background GFS Retention

Background GFS retention applies to standard and orphaned backup files that are no longer processed by any jobs. The orphaned backup files are shown under the Home > Backups > Disk (Orphaned) node.

Background GFS retention process detects backup files that are no longer processed by any jobs and analyzes their retention period. If the retention period for GFS flags of such backup files has expired, Veeam Backup & Replication removes GFS flags. Then Veeam Backup & Replication deletes these backup files according to the short-term retention policy, if the following conditions are met:

• The backup file does not have any other GFS flags assigned.
• The backup file does not have any dependent files.

For more information about GFS retention policy, see Long-Term Retention Policy (GFS).

Job and Backup File Types

Background retention job applies to backup files created with all the types of jobs that use GFS:

• Backup
• Backup copy
• Veeam Agent
• Veeam Agent management

Background retention job applies both to standard and orphaned backup files. It does not apply to imported backup files.