Jetpack VaultPress Backup: Storage and Retention

How long do you keep my backups?

Our different backup plans have different retention timeframes:

• Jetpack VaultPress Backup 10 GB: You can choose between 7 days, 30 days, 120 days, or 1 year. If your site’s storage limit is reached for the backup retention period you’ve selected, you will need to purchase a storage add-on or reduce the retention period.
• Jetpack Personal and Jetpack Premium: 30 days, no storage space limit
• Jetpack Professional: Unlimited
• Jetpack Backup Daily and Jetpack Security Daily: 30 days, , no storage space limit
• Jetpack Backup Realtime, Jetpack Security Realtime, and Jetpack Complete: 1 year, no storage space limit
• Jetpack Backup included in the WordPress.com hosting plans: as long as your site has an eligible plan, you can restore backups up to 6 months old. If your plan expires, backups are kept for 30 days after expiration

How is storage usage calculated?

Storage is roughly calculated as the size of your most recent daily backup times how many daily backups we have saved. So if your last backup was 1GB and we keep 30 days’ worth of backups, you will be using 30GB of storage.

In reality, it’s a bit more complicated (files are replicated in multiple data servers for redundancy, we keep real-time data and metadata, etc.), so we simplify it in a way that is easier to understand and keep track of.

Can I choose how many days of backups should be stored?

You can choose whether you’d like Jetpack to save your backups from the past 7 days, 30 days, 120 days, or 1 year. To access this feature, please follow these steps:

1. Go to https://cloud.jetpack.com. 
2. In the left sidebar, click Settings.
3. Select how many days of backups you’d like us to store. You’ll see an estimate of how much storage is required for each option, as shown in this example screenshot, and whether you’ll need to upgrade to add more storage to accommodate your choice.

Please note that reducing your retention time means you will immediately no longer have access to the older backups that fall outside of your chosen retention period.

Can I delete old backups to free up storage space?

It is not possible to delete Jetpack backups. We may do this automatically if you reach your storage limit, but it is not something you can do yourself. The best option is to adjust your retention time to a shorter timespan.

How do I get more storage?

We will reach out to you if you are approaching your Jetpack VaultPress Backup storage limit, with a recommendation of a storage add-on. You can buy extra storage in the amount of 10GB, 100GB, or 1TB, so you can tailor your backup plan to fit your individual needs. These add-ons are currently only available for monthly billing, even if you pay for your base plan annually. We hope to add a yearly billing option for add-ons soon.

Prices*

• 10GB: $2.95/month (USD)
• 100GB: $5.95/month (USD)
• 1TB: $9.95/month (USD)

*When you are logged into your site, you will see the storage upgrade prices in your local currency.

Unlike Jetpack plans, storage add-ons do not include introductory discounts. They are billed at a flat monthly rate, and the price does not change at renewal.

To ensure uninterrupted, real-time backups of your site, if you’ve reached the storage limit, please either reduce your backup retention period, increase your storage, or reduce your backup size.

You do not need a storage upgrade for any of the legacy plans: Jetpack Personal, Jetpack Premium or Jetpack Professional.

What happens if I reach my backup storage limit?

If your site exceeds its storage limit, Jetpack Backup will automatically delete the oldest backups to make room for new ones — as long as it can keep at least the minimum number of days you selected (typically 7 days).

If that minimum number of backups still exceeds your plan’s storage, Jetpack will stop creating new backups. You’ll still have access to the most recent backup before you reached your storage limit, but no new ones will be created until you reduce your storage usage or purchase additional storage.

Once space becomes available again — for example, if a future backup is smaller or you reduce your site size — backups will resume automatically.

What can I do to reduce my backup size?

There are a few things that you can do to reduce your backup size:

• Delete Old Images: If you have old, unused images in your media library, deleting these will help reduce backup size.
• Optimize Image Size: There are tools online that you can use to optimize your images that will reduce image size, as well as plugins that do this as you upload them to your media library.
• Optimize Video Size: We recommend uploading videos meeting these specifications.
• Delete Old Drafts: If you have old draft posts and pages that you don’t see being published, move them to trash, and then delete them permanently from trash.
• Plugins: Reduce the number of plugins you’re using. Check out the full list of features for the Jetpack plugin. You may be using plugins that do something that Jetpack has already built-in.
• Themes: Reduce the number of themes you have installed on your site. We recommend that you keep your site’s currently used theme plus at least one WordPress default theme, such as Twenty Twenty for troubleshooting purposes.
• Exclude Large Files: You can exclude large files by putting them in a directory called donotbackup or by adding a file called .donotbackup to an entire directory that you would like Jetpack VaultPress Backup to skip.

We’re not able to provide direct assistance with managing your site’s files or reducing the overall size of your site. If you need help with this process, consider asking your web host or hiring a WordPress web developer.

There are also plugins in the WordPress.org plugin directory that can help clean up duplicate and/or unused media files.

I reduced my site size; do I still need a backup storage add-on?

If you have reduced your website’s size, we will run a new calculation of site size x number of backups stored to check how much storage you are using. You can check this yourself by going to https://cloud.jetpack.com/settings/ and see if you no longer need a add-on storage plan.

I cancelled my Backup subscription; have I lost all my backups?

Backup files aren’t deleted immediately after you cancel your subscription. We retain them for a limited period (depending on your subscription), but they become inaccessible as soon as the subscription ends.

To avoid losing access, we strongly recommend downloading copies of your backups before cancelling.