Hi Ken,
The number of backups you have is dependent on your Auto-Save Time
Interval and how long GnuCash is open (and also depends on if you're
manually doing saves). If you set the Auto-Save Interval to zero, then
you've disabled Auto-Save, and the number of backups will be totally
determined by you -- whenever you decide to do a save.
BTW, I'm not sure that you need to be concerned about limiting backups.
I have over 30 years worth of data in my GnuCash data file; and it's
only 11 MB in size. So disk space isn't really an issue. I have my
backup retention time set to 21 days; and currently I have about 90
backups. For me, having multiple backups is more reassuring than a
bother. Just my opinion.
Tom
On 06/18/2026 07:48 PM, Ken Pyzik wrote:
OK - I think I may have found the answer to my own question. In the
EDIT>>Preferences>>General, there is a setting to Retain Logs/Backup files with
three options - Never, For X number of days or Forever. The default appears to be 30 days.
Now this is interesting.
If this is true - which I believe it is - this means that if you go into
Gnucash every day, you can end up with up to 30 or 31 logs and backup files.
So, someone could assume that they could just change it to 3 days and that
would be fine. However, if you do NOT open Gnucash everyday - but instead open
it up once a week, you would need keep the logs for 21 days in order to have 3
backups. By the same token, if you are someone who only opens Gnucash once a
month - or only once every couple of months, you would need to keep the files
for up to 60 or 90 days in order to get 3 full backups.
I am guessing that this is the behavior and that it has probably been this way
forever. I am also guessing that if you only want 3 backups definitively - you
have to adjust the days accordingly to the way you use the system - i.e., how
often you open and work with the files. And if you go into the system multiple
times a day - you could end up with A LOT of backups and logs files.
Is this behavior correct? If yes, would changing it to be a definitive number
be difficult? I assuming it is, otherwise I would have thought it would have
been changed by now.
Ken
________________________________
From: gnucash-user<[email protected]> on behalf of
Ken Pyzik<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2026 6:05 PM
To: Gnucash Users<[email protected]>
Subject: [GNC] Logs and Backups
This may have been mentioned in the past - and if so - sorry for the repeat. However, I noticed today 10
".log" and 10 ".<<date>>.gnucash" files. So, I am assuming that gnucash is
keeping 10 transaction and log file backups. Is this correct? If so, is this the default and if it is the
default, can this be changed to only 2 or 3? Thanks for the reply.
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