Cleaning up and backing up

[gcu.10.jgbrown at spamgourmet.com]

Greetings...

I need to clean up and establish a regular backup protocol for my Gnucash
data. Let's start simple and discuss just the cleanup.

I have several dozen data files in my Gnucash data directory. Here are the
most recent twenty; the first one in the list is the file that currently
opens when I launch Gnucash:


-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn 1028050 2011-05-15 16:20 accounts.20110102212607.xac
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn  249254 2011-05-15 16:20
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515161546.log
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn 1027801 2011-05-15 16:15
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515162053.xac
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn    1432 2011-05-15 16:10
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515160722.log
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn 1027892 2011-05-15 16:07
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515161543.xac
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn    1404 2011-05-15 16:02
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515160128.log
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn 1027995 2011-05-15 16:01
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515160719.xac
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn    1546 2011-05-15 15:56
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515155228.log
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn 1027729 2011-05-15 15:52
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515160125.xac
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn    4565 2011-05-15 15:52
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515154608.log
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn 1027190 2011-05-15 15:46
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515155222.xac
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn   22813 2011-05-15 15:43
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515154000.log
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn     170 2011-05-13 13:42
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110513134228.log
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn 1026040 2011-05-13 13:42
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110515154602.xac
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn     192 2011-05-13 13:40
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110513133848.log
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn 1026040 2011-05-13 13:38
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110513134222.xac
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn   13460 2011-05-13 13:38
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110513133512.log
-rw-r--r--  1 khn khn 1025906 2011-05-13 13:35
accounts.20110102212607.xac.20110513133841.xac


Obviously, something happened on or about Jan 2 of this year. Looking
further back, I find this:


-rw-r--r-- 1 khn khn 965056 2011-01-02 21:26 accounts


This file shows up in Nautilus as a gzip file. I have a vague memory of
encountering an error when opening Gnucash one day, and subsequently opening
a backup file.

Questions:

1) Can I delete all the .log files in this directory?
2) Can I delete all but the most recent few .xac files (after backing up the
older files)?
3) Can I rename accounts.20110102212607.xac to just plain 'accounts' and use
that as the default data file from now on?


Many thanks for your help...

JGB