NAME

       borg-delete - Delete archives

SYNOPSIS

       borg [common options] delete [options]

DESCRIPTION

       This command deletes archives from the repository.

       Important: When deleting archives, repository disk space is not freed until you run borg compact.

       When in doubt, use --dry-run --list to see what would be deleted.

       When  using  --stats,  you  will get some statistics about how much data was deleted - the "Deleted data"
       deduplicated size there is most interesting as that is how much your repository will shrink.  Please note
       that the "All archives" stats refer to the state after deletion.

       You can delete multiple archives by specifying a matching pattern,  using  the  --match-archives  PATTERN
       option (for more info on these patterns, see borg_patterns).

       Always first use --dry-run --list to see what would be deleted.

OPTIONS

       See borg-common(1) for common options of Borg commands.

   options
       -n, --dry-run
              do not change repository

       --list output verbose list of archives

       --consider-checkpoints
              consider checkpoint archives for deletion (default: not considered).

       -s, --stats
              print statistics for the deleted archive

       --force
              force deletion of corrupted archives, use --force --force in case --force does not work.

       -c SECONDS, --checkpoint-interval SECONDS
              write checkpoint every SECONDS seconds (Default: 1800)

   Archive filters
       -a PATTERN, --match-archives PATTERN
              only consider archive names matching the pattern. see "borg help match-archives".

       --sort-by KEYS
              Comma-separated  list  of  sorting keys; valid keys are: timestamp, archive, name, id; default is:
              timestamp

       --first N
              consider first N archives after other filters were applied

       --last N
              consider last N archives after other filters were applied

       --oldest TIMESPAN
              consider archives between the oldest archive's timestamp and (oldest + TIMESPAN), e.g. 7d or 12m.

       --newest TIMESPAN
              consider archives between the newest archive's timestamp and (newest - TIMESPAN), e.g. 7d or 12m.

       --older TIMESPAN
              consider archives older than (now - TIMESPAN), e.g. 7d or 12m.

       --newer TIMESPAN
              consider archives newer than (now - TIMESPAN), e.g. 7d or 12m.

EXAMPLES

          # delete a single backup archive:
          $ borg delete -a Monday
          # actually free disk space:
          $ borg compact

          # delete all archives whose names begin with the machine's hostname followed by "-"
          $ borg delete -a 'sh:{hostname}-*'

          # delete all archives whose names contain "-2012-"
          $ borg delete -a 'sh:*-2012-*'

          # see what would be deleted if delete was run without --dry-run
          $ borg delete --list --dry-run -a 'sh:*-May-*'

SEE ALSO

       borg-common(1), borg-compact(1), borg-rdelete(1)

AUTHOR

       The Borg Collective

                                                   2024-04-01                                     BORG-DELETE(1)