limit the number of autosaves

[Geert Janssens]

On Wednesday 26 March 2014 17:28:30 Jonathan Griggs wrote:
> First, thanks to the GnuCash team for your efforts in developing and
> supporting GnuCash, they should be celebrated.
> 
> I am a 1-day-old user but have a question about autosave versions.  It
> seams they just continue. Is there a way to limit the number of
> autosave versions within the software?
> 
> Thanks!
> Jon
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Hi Jon,

You are mixing two things together: auto-save and automatic backups. Both are configurable to 
some extend.

Let's start with backups. By default each time your data gets saved (either by you or via auto-
save), the previous version of your data is moved aside as a backup. I think it's these backup 
file you see growing in number.

Next to that you can tell gnucash to save any change at a fixed interval to prevent accidental 
data loss. Each time this auto save triggers it will also trigger the backup mechanism as 
explained above.

Both options are configurable in Edit->Preferences->General

For auto-save you can specify the interval in minutes between two save actions. Setting this to 
0 disables auto-save.

You can limit the number of backups to keep as well. But not as an absolute number. Instead 
you define an age limit, like keep all backups less than 30 days old. The setting for this is 
"Retain log files". A bit of a misleading name as I see it now. It applies to both log files and 
backup files. The next version of gnucash  will have an improved string to make this more clear.

Does this answer your question ?

Geert