Every instance has a scheduled backup policy with three fields: an enabled toggle, a daily backup time, and a retention count. This page covers configuring those fields, plus one fact that catches people off guard: turning off the toggle does not make existing backups safe.
Before you turn it off, see how narrow its actual effect is:
| What happens | What does not happen |
|---|---|
| Existing backups keep getting cleaned up on the retention count, one run every 15 minutes, deleting at most one backup per run until the count is at or below the retention count | Cleanup does not skip an instance because its toggle is off — the cleanup task walks every policy and does not check whether it is enabled |
| New scheduled backups stop — the schedule scan that runs every 5 minutes only processes enabled policies, so no new backup is created after you turn the toggle off | The most recent backup before you turned it off gets no special exemption — cleanup only looks at count and creation time |
| If the instance has another active work request when its turn comes up (a migration, a power-on), that run is skipped and retried on the next pass, 15 minutes later | No confirmation dialog appears and no notification is sent — this is a background task deleting the backup automatically, logged as a system-initiated action |
| Once a backup is picked for cleanup, deletion runs immediately and cannot be undone — it goes through the same deletion path as manually deleting a backup | There is no recycle bin or soft delete, and a failed deletion does not bring the backup back |
- The instance must have saved a backup policy at least once before, even while the toggle was on — that is what creates the policy record in the database.
- The retention count must be greater than 0. The default in the dashboard is 7, and the save request rejects any value of 0 or less.
- An instance that has never saved a policy is unaffected by cleanup, because the cleanup task only walks policy records that already exist in the database.
- Go to Compute > Instances, open the target instance's detail page, select the Backups tab, and select the scheduled backup summary to open the policy panel.
- Turn on the enabled toggle on the left. The backup time and retention count fields only appear once it is on — the interface shows: "Turn on scheduled backups on the left first, then configure the schedule and retention count here." That message describes how to reveal the editing fields; it says nothing about whether cleanup keeps running once the toggle is off.
- Set the daily backup time and the retention count. The policy summary updates to something like "Daily at 03:00 · keep 7".
- Select Save policy. The panel shows the updated next-run time, confirming the save took effect.
- In the same policy panel, turn off the enabled toggle on the left.
- The backup time and retention count fields disappear, but the retention count you last saved stays in effect in the database — it is not cleared or reset.
- Select Save policy. The policy summary changes to "Disabled", but this only affects whether new backups are created — it does not affect cleanup of existing ones.
If the time you set does not line up with when things actually happen, it is because two separate scheduled tasks are running at different intervals:
| Task | Frequency | What it checks | Checks the toggle? |
|---|---|---|---|
| New backup scan | Every 5 minutes | Policies that are due (next-run time has passed) and enabled | Yes — only processes enabled policies |
| Retention cleanup | Every 15 minutes | Whether the instance's completed backup count exceeds its retention count | No — walks every policy and does not check the enabled field |
The daily backup time you set is a target, not a guarantee — the actual backup is created whenever the next 5-minute scan notices the policy is due, so it can land several minutes after the time you configured. Retention cleanup runs on its own independent 15-minute schedule, unrelated to the backup time you set and unaffected by the toggle, and it keeps running until the backup count is at or below the retention count.
Turning off scheduled backups does not protect any backup. Only two things actually prevent a given backup from being cleaned up:
- Raise the retention count so the instance's completed backup count no longer exceeds the limit.
- Convert the backup you want to keep into a custom image. After conversion it is removed from the backup list and shown as a custom image instead, so it is no longer subject to retention cleanup. The underlying data is not copied, so storage usage does not increase.