Putting "backup" in calling them out is what most likely is confusing folks.
They are transactions rollback archives. -----Original Message----- From: Michael or Penny Novack <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, June 19, 2026 10:06 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [GNC] Logs and Backups I realize people are treating THESE backups as satisfying the need to back up your data. But better to think of these as "session backups" and not replacement For your general backup procedure. Michael D Novack On 6/18/2026 9:48 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. > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > [email protected] > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > [email protected] > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. -- There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave. _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
