Maintenance
Maintenance is kopia's housekeeping. Full maintenance deletes data that no snapshot uses any more, which is when the space from a delete comes back. Kopia runs maintenance on its own schedule. You can also start it by hand.
Run maintenance by hand
Open it with Run maintenance… in the Repository tab, or from the job panel after a delete. Running maintenance needs the Non-destructive permission or higher (Permissions).
- Choose the Type:
- Quick: index and cache housekeeping. Frees little space.
- Full: deletes data that no snapshot uses any more.
- Choose the Safety:
- Normal (the default): kopia waits before it deletes unused data, so the space returns over later runs.
- None: deletes unused data now.
- Select Run full maintenance… or Run quick maintenance… and confirm.
Maintenance runs as a job in the job panel. A full run after a large delete can take hours. It keeps running in the background.
Warning: with Safety: None, kopia deletes unused data at once, without its usual wait. If a snapshot is running on this repository at the same time, from this computer or another, that snapshot can lose data. Use None only on a repository that only you use, when no snapshot is running.
Why the space comes back later
With Normal safety, kopia deletes a piece only after two full maintenance runs, some hours apart, have both found it unused. This protects a snapshot that is running at the same time. So one full run usually isn't enough. Kopia needs a few runs to return all the space (When the space comes back).
The panel shows when the next scheduled full run is due.
Who can run it
Kopia lets only one user and computer run maintenance on a repository: the maintenance owner. If this computer isn't the owner, the panel says so and won't start a run. Run maintenance from the owner's computer instead, or make this computer the owner with kopia's command line:
kopia maintenance set --owner=me
Change the owner only when the old owner no longer runs maintenance. Two computers that both think they own it can run maintenance at the same time.
When KopiaLens runs a repository's backups and this computer is the owner, KopiaLens runs maintenance on kopia's schedule too (Who runs backups).