Data Retention

Data retention in Telebugs helps you control how long error reports and artifacts (like source maps) are kept. Automatic policies clean up old data based on time or disk usage, keeping storage manageable and supporting compliance needs.

Cleanup jobs run nightly at 2 AM server time. You can also trigger manual purges immediately.

This chapter covers error and artifact retention policies, purge types, and monitoring disk usage.

Error Retention Policy

Error retention controls how long reports and their details (backtraces, breadcrumbs, tags, notes, etc.) are stored.

Enable automatic cleanup to prevent unlimited growth.

Enabling Error Retention

Go to Settings > Data Retention.

Toggle Enable automatic error cleanup and save. The UI shows when the next cleanup will run.

Time-Based Cleanup

Delete reports older than a set number of days.

Choose:

• Full purge: Removes everything (including notes and attachments). Historical details are lost.
• Partial purge: Keeps basic metadata for graphs and counts, but deletes heavy details like stack traces and contexts.

Example: A 90-day partial purge keeps stats for reports older than 90 days but removes the full payloads.

Disk-Based Cleanup

Triggers when the database file grows too large (full purge only, oldest reports first).

Set limit as:

• Absolute size (e.g., 10 GB)
• Percentage of total disk (e.g., 35%)

Runs alongside time-based rules if both are enabled.

Artifact Retention Policy

Artifacts (mainly source maps attached to releases) have separate retention rules.

Enabling Artifact Retention

In Settings > Data Retention, toggle Enable automatic artifact cleanup.

Time-Based Artifact Cleanup

Deletes artifacts from releases older than the set period, but only if no recent error reports reference them.

Disk-Based Artifact Cleanup

Triggers when total artifact storage exceeds the limit (absolute GB or percentage).

Deletes from oldest inactive releases first.

Purge on New Release

Optional: When uploading a new release, automatically delete artifacts from excess old releases (keep only the newest N, e.g., 20).

Oldest inactive releases are removed first.

Monitoring and Maintenance

The Data Retention section shows live stats:

• Total and free disk space
• Database size and percentage used
• Artifact size and count
• Total report count

Stats refresh automatically after cleanups.

Telebugs runs a nightly VACUUM job to reclaim unused space when there’s enough free disk (database size + 10% buffer).

Important: All automatic and manual purges are irreversible. Export critical data if needed before cleanup.

For quick cleanup, use the Danger Zone in project settings to purge all error data or note attachments manually.