How do I remove files backed up by mistake, or the entire backup id containing them?

I’ve backed up a bunch of movie files I want to remove to reduce the size of the storage, I have several computers backing up to this one storage.

I’ve updated my filters file to exclude the movies.

First thought was to prune the whole storage and start fresh. So:

duplicacy list
Snapshot hps_pool2g revision 1 created at 2017-10-03 16:56 -hash
Snapshot hps_pool2g revision 2 created at 2017-10-06 14:08

duplicacy prune -r 1
Deleting snapshot hps_pool2g at revision 1
Fossil collection 1 saved
The snapshot hps_pool2g at revision 1 has been removed

duplicacy prune -r 2
Fossil collection 1 found
Ignore snapshot system_backup whose last revision was created 7 days ago
Ignore snapshot zenbuntu whose last revision was created 7 days ago
Ignore snapshot zenbuntu_home whose last revision was created 7 days ago
Ignore snapshot av whose last revision was created 7 days ago
Ignore snapshot hps_home whose last revision was created 7 days ago
Ignore snapshot hps_pool2g whose last revision was created 7 days ago
Ignore snapshot oszen whose last revision was created 7 days ago
Ignore snapshot red whose last revision was created 7 days ago
Fossils from collection 1 is eligible for deletion
The chunk 8bc31276fd572069163aeed9e18033a2e8b8f2b07c7f0a8837156a3bd7718d7b has been permanently removed
The chunk d39f300c1f6092c5def98e88b9fb36f062a31b6795ffeebbfa16de8eb7226d29 has been permanently removed
The chunk 94a954a082436e279870a3900639f25a520b440fa50becc179f90a4c34bdd7df has been permanently removed
The chunk e2dbad47ec35d4adba414ad48e244d3b71eaebfa749fe1d16df40c909d65756b has been permanently removed
The latest snapshot hps_pool2g at revision 2 can't be deleted in non-exclusive mode

Not sure how to proceed from here. There will be chunks in common with the backup ID av, so I don’t expect to regain much space until I also prune that backup.

Happy to remove everything under the ID ‘hps_pool2g’ and recreate that backup. Just not sure how to do it without leaving chunks, or at least metadata behind.

You’ll need to specify the -exclusive switch:

duplicacy prune -r 2 -exclusive

Please make sure no other backups are running when you run this command.

Resuscitating the topic …

As my backup scripts have been working fine for some time, I’m now improving the prune scripts.

Why, in this case above, is -exclusive necessary?

And why the revision “can’t be deleted in non-exclusive mode”?

The latest revision from each repository can’t be deleted in non-exclusive mode because in theory it is possible that a backup for that repository may be in progress which will use the latest revision as the base, so removal of the latest revision would cause some chunks to be removed even though they are needed by the backup in progress.

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