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Delete files scheduled for removal

Source: R/maintenance.R
cleanup_old_files.Rd

Physically deletes data files that are no longer referenced by any snapshot – typically files orphaned by expire_snapshots() or replaced by merge_adjacent_files().

Usage

cleanup_old_files(
  ducklake_name = NULL,
  older_than = NULL,
  cleanup_all = FALSE,
  dry_run = FALSE
)

Arguments

ducklake_name

Name of the attached DuckLake catalog. If NULL, the current database is used.

older_than

Only delete files scheduled for deletion before this timestamp (POSIXct, converted to UTC, or character already in UTC). One of older_than or cleanup_all is required.

cleanup_all

If TRUE, delete all scheduled files regardless of when they were scheduled.

dry_run

If TRUE, only lists the files that would be deleted.

Value

A data frame listing the deleted (or deletable) files.

Details

As an alternative to calling this manually, set a retention policy once with set_ducklake_option("delete_older_than", "7 days"); every later checkpoint_ducklake() then deletes the files that have been released for at least that long.

See also

expire_snapshots(), delete_orphaned_files(), checkpoint_ducklake()

Other maintenance: backup_ducklake(), checkpoint_ducklake(), delete_orphaned_files(), expire_snapshots(), flush_inlined_data(), get_table_info(), list_ducklake_files(), merge_adjacent_files(), plot_table_files(), rewrite_data_files()

Examples

lake_dir <- tempfile("cleanup_lake_")
dir.create(lake_dir)
attach_ducklake("cleanup_lake", lake_path = lake_dir)
create_table(mtcars, "cars")

expire_snapshots(older_than = Sys.time())
#> Expired 1 snapshot.
#> ℹ Unreferenced files are scheduled for deletion; run `cleanup_old_files()` to
#>   reclaim storage.
#>   snapshot_id       snapshot_time schema_version               changes author
#> 1           0 2026-09-17 21:42:55              0 schemas_created, main   <NA>
#>   commit_message commit_extra_info
#> 1    Create lake              <NA>

# Preview, then delete everything that is scheduled
cleanup_old_files(dry_run = TRUE, cleanup_all = TRUE)
#> Dry run: 0 old file would be deleted.
#> [1] path
#> <0 rows> (or 0-length row.names)
cleanup_old_files(cleanup_all = TRUE)
#> Deleted 0 old file.
#> [1] path
#> <0 rows> (or 0-length row.names)

# Only delete files scheduled more than a week ago
cleanup_old_files(older_than = Sys.time() - 7 * 24 * 60 * 60)
#> Deleted 0 old file.
#> [1] path
#> <0 rows> (or 0-length row.names)

detach_ducklake("cleanup_lake", shutdown = TRUE)
unlink(lake_dir, recursive = TRUE)