The Backup interface has been rebuilt to match the rest of Automate. Your policies, your data and your schedules are unchanged. This is a change to the interface, not to how Backup works.
What has changed
The functionality is the same. The Purge screen has been rebuilt.
Before
After
Purging permanently deletes backed up data. It happens in three ways: automatically when retention expires, automatically as part of an offboarding workflow, or manually from the Purge screen.
Purging cannot be undone.
Purging manually
You can manually purge backed up data for users and shared drives that no longer have an active backup policy and whose data is still within its retention period.
- Go to Backup > Purge.
- Select the Users or Shared Drives tab.
- Filter the list to find what you need. Results update as you type.
- Select the users or drives you want. Selecting more than one brings up the bulk actions bar.
- Select Purge selected.
- For user data, tick the data types you want to purge. Mail, Drive, Calendar, Contacts and Chat can each be purged separately.
- Select Purge backups.
- Confirm at the dialog. Nothing is deleted until you confirm.
The purge starts within an hour of being triggered. Progress shows in the status column as Pending, Purging and then Purged.
Note: if a backup policy is reapplied before the purge runs, the user or drive drops off the Purge tab, the purging status clears, and a new backup starts.
Purging automatically on retention
Backed up data outside the retention period set at the storage or policy level is purged automatically. See Creating and editing a backup policy.
Purging as part of offboarding
If you also use CloudM Automate, the Purge Backup offboarding step purges a user's backed up data a set number of days after they are offboarded. The default is 30 days, and it is configurable on the step. It purges both mail and Drive data.
Where Archive is also configured, the archive step runs before the purge, so data is archived before the backups go.
This is useful if you use Archive alongside Backup. Backup stores incremental changes; Archive stores the latest version. Once someone has left, the value of keeping incremental backups falls away but the storage cost does not. This step moves leavers' data into Archive and keeps the backups for a set period for contingency, after which they are purged and the storage cost stops.
Configuring the step
- Select Automate from the main navigation, then Offboarding Workflow.
- Choose the organisational unit or Smart Team and select Add offboarding step.
- Select Purge Backup, set Purge after days, and select Add.
- Select Save rules.
What happens: the user is unassigned from their backup policy and their retention period is set to the number of days on the step. At 0 days the purge starts within the hour. The step is skipped if the user has no backup.
Worth knowing: after offboarding, that user is no longer assigned to a policy even though their organisational unit or Smart Team has one. To reassign it, move the user to a different organisational unit or Smart Team, making sure they inherit its configuration, then move them back. The policy syncs within four hours.
Common questions
Can I undo a purge?
No. Check the selection on the confirmation dialog before you continue.
Someone is not in the purge list
Only users and shared drives without an active backup policy, whose data is still within retention, appear there.
The purge says it succeeded but the data is still there
A purge can report success without deleting where lifecycle rules or object lock are set at the storage provider. Check the bucket configuration.
A user stopped being backed up after offboarding
The Purge Backup step unassigns them from their policy. Move them to another organisational unit or Smart Team and back again to reassign it.