[GNC] Logs and Backups

[Michael or Penny Novack]

I realize people are treating THESE backups as satisfying the need to 
back up your data. But better to think of these as "session backups" and 
not replacement For your general backup procedure.

Michael D Novack


On 6/18/2026 9:48 PM, Ken Pyzik wrote:
> OK - I think I may have found the answer to my own question.  In the EDIT>>Preferences>>General, there is a setting to Retain Logs/Backup files with three options - Never, For X number of days or Forever.  The default appears to be 30 days.  Now this is interesting.
>
> If this is true - which I believe it is - this means that if you go into Gnucash every day, you can end up with up to 30 or 31 logs and backup files.  So, someone could assume that they could just change it to 3 days and that would be fine.  However, if you do NOT open Gnucash everyday - but instead open it up once a week, you would need keep the logs for 21 days in order to have 3 backups.  By the same token, if you are someone who only opens Gnucash once a month - or only once every couple of months, you would need to keep the files for up to 60 or 90 days in order to get 3 full backups.
>
> I am guessing that this is the behavior and that it has probably been this way forever.  I am also guessing that if you only want 3 backups definitively - you have to adjust the days accordingly to the way you use the system - i.e., how often you open and work with the files.  And if you go into the system multiple times a day - you could end up with A LOT of backups and logs files.
>
> Is this behavior correct?  If yes, would changing it to be a definitive number be difficult?  I assuming it is, otherwise I would have thought it would have been changed by now.
>
> Ken
> ________________________________
> From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+pyz01=outlook.com at gnucash.org> on behalf of Ken Pyzik <pyz01 at outlook.com>
> Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2026 6:05 PM
> To: Gnucash Users <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> Subject: [GNC] Logs and Backups
>
> This may have been mentioned in the past - and if so - sorry for the repeat.  However, I noticed today 10 ".log" and 10 ".<<date>>.gnucash" files.  So, I am assuming that gnucash is keeping 10 transaction and log file backups.  Is this correct?  If so, is this the default and if it is the default, can this be changed to only 2 or 3? Thanks for the reply.
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