Effective way to delete all backups for one client?

[MrPete]

One large client "ClientA" is no longer in use. Its replacement is solid, and fully backed up. We no longer want or need the backups of ClientA.

I don't see this operation discussed anywhere in the documentation.

How to best accomplish this? I can NOT afford to recycle the entire backup set: several other clients are backed up in the same set.

[Lennart_T]

One way is discussed here:

https://www.retrospect.com/en/documentation/user_guide/win/management#managing-backup-sets

More specifically:

Quote

To manually groom a Snapshot:

1. Choose Configure>Backup Sets from the Retrospect navigation bar.

2. Select a disk Backup Set that has grooming enabled.

3. Click the Snapshots tab.

   If the Snapshot you want to groom is not displayed in the Snapshots list, click Add to retrieve it from the disk.

4. Select a Snapshot to groom and click Forget.

5. Click Forget to remove the selected Snapshot from the Backup Set Catalog File.

6. Close the Backup Set properties window.

   The grooming dialog displays.

7. Click Now to groom the Backup Set now.

   If you want to groom the Backup Set later, click Later. Retrospect automatically grooms the Backup Set during the next grooming session (as determined by the Backup Set’s grooming policy).

   It is possible to unlock Snapshots that Retrospect is protecting from grooming.

 

[MrPete]

I went through that already. There are key facts not mentioned in the documentation, and not obvious in the UI.

HOWEVER, I have now solved this:

To remove/groom ALL snapshots for a given source (or sources):
1) Choose Configure>Backup Sets
2) Select a disk Backup Set that has grooming enabled.
3) Click the Snapshots tab.

(now the Good Stuff )
4) Note that the Snapshots list is already sorted by Source.
5) Use normal GUI tools to select all Snapshots to be removed for the desired Sources. (eg Click-and-drag, or click on the first one, scroll to the last and shift-click.)
6) Click Forget to remove all selected Snapshots from the Backup Set
7) Close the Backup Set properties

The snapshots (and related session files) will be auto-groomed at the next grooming session, and/or Retrospect will give you an immediate opportunity to initiate a Groom cycle.

[Lennart_T]

Yes, the documentation often leaves much to desire.

For many years you could only select one snapshot in step 5 and then wait (often) several minutes before the next one could be forgotten.