# Leftover files on target beyond end of retention period
**URL:** https://forum.duplicati.com/t/leftover-files-on-target-beyond-end-of-retention-period/22732
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [September 27, 2026, 10:07am UTC](https://forum.duplicati.com/t/leftover-files-on-target-beyond-end-of-retention-period/22732 "2026-09-27T10:07:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Eni\_Ki](https://forum.duplicati.com/u/Eni_Ki)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2026, 10:07am UTC](https://forum.duplicati.com/t/leftover-files-on-target-beyond-end-of-retention-period/22732/1 "2026-09-27T10:07:51Z")
(2.4.0.0 - 2.4.0.0\_stable\_2026-09-03 on Win11)
I have set the retention pattern to keep backups for 10 weeks.
In my version list for restore I see 173 versions back to July 19 - which is reasonable. However at my target location I see 175 index and block files older than July 19 all the way back to 2024.
I may have changed configuration of the job some time ago, don’t remember - could this be a reason for the leftovers? Is it safe to manually delete all files on the target older than the version 173 ? Or is there another way to get Duplicati to clean up old files?
TIA.
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### Author:  [@Lerrissirrel](https://forum.duplicati.com/u/Lerrissirrel)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2026, 9:05pm UTC](https://forum.duplicati.com/t/leftover-files-on-target-beyond-end-of-retention-period/22732/2 "2026-09-27T21:05:37Z")
Hi Eni\_Ki,
Presumably those are files, or parts of files, in your back that have not changed or did not change until after 10 weeks ago. Duplicati doesn’t re-upload the same data again just because you took a more recent backup. If the needed data is already at the target, great!
Think of it this way - if you had started this backup and NEVER changed anything, all the files in the target would be from the very first backup done in 2024. Since nothing changed, nothing would be deleted or added after that.
But Duplicati would still be reporting the backups for the last 10 weeks. Each one of this is, legitimately the correct point in time from each planned backup. They would just happen to also be exactly the same as each other and every other backup since 2024.
Hope this helps!
L
p.s. It is also true that Duplicati may take some time to clean up old, unnecessary data, but it is unlikely to take 10 weeks. Chances are the majority of what you see reflects real data that is still part of your backup (because it hasn’t changed).