NAME

       bup-gc - remove unreferenced, unneeded data

SYNOPSIS

       bup gc [-#|--verbose] <branch|save...>

DESCRIPTION

       bup  gc  removes  (permanently deletes) unreachable data from the repository, data that isn’t referred to
       directly or indirectly by the current set of branches (backup sets) and tags.  But bear in mind that giv‐
       en deduplication, deleting a save and running the garbage collector might or might  not  actually  delete
       anything (or reclaim any space).

       With  the  current, proababilistic implementation, some fraction of the unreachable data may be retained.
       In exchange, the garbage collection should require much less RAM than might  by  some  more  precise  ap‐
       proaches.

       Typically, the garbage collector would be invoked after some set of invocations of bup rm.

       WARNING:  This  is  one  of  the few bup commands that modifies your archive in intentionally destructive
       ways.  Though if an attempt to join or restore the data you still care about after a gc succeeds,  that’s
       a  fairly  encouraging  sign  that  the commands worked correctly.  (The dev/compare-trees command in the
       source tree can be used to help test before/after results.)

OPTIONS

       --threshold=N
              only rewrite a packfile if it’s over N percent garbage; otherwise leave  it  alone.   The  default
              threshold is 10%.

       -v, --verbose
              increase  verbosity (can be used more than once).  With one -v, bup prints every directory name as
              it gets backed up.  With two -v, it also prints every filename.

       -#, --compress=#
              set the compression level to # (a value from 0-9, where 9 is the highest and 0 is no compression).
              The default is 1 (fast, loose compression).

EXAMPLES

              # Remove all saves of "home" and most of the otherwise unreferenced data.
              $ bup rm home
              $ bup gc

SEE ALSO

       bup-rm(1) and bup-fsck(1)

BUP

       Part of the bup(1) suite.

AUTHORS

       Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org>.

Bup 0.33.3                                           0.33.3                                            bup-gc(1)