Thanks for the clarification!
For those that might not follow the difference, here’s a quick summary of how --retention-policy cleanup handles “end of life” of a file / version:
- any file still existing in the source will always have at least the most recent version in the backup even if that most recent backup is older than retention policy limits. (Unless
--allow-full-removalis enabled, in which case backup versions older than retention rules allow WILL be removed from the backup even if the file still exists in the source.) - any file deleted from the source will subsequently be deleted from the backup when it reaches the retention policy limit. This means that if you want to keep files “forever” (like CrashPlan allows) you should make sure your retention policy includes a very long time frame. For example, adding “99Y:99Y” means a deleted (from the source) file won’t be deleted until the version in the backup is over 99 years old.
The “99Y” before the colon means keep “things around for 99 years”. The “99Y” after the colon means “keep 1 version for every 99 years”.