Deleting Obsolete Backups

This section explains how to delete obsolete backups, which are those no longer needed by the configured retention policy. If you use a fast recovery area as your only disk-based backup destination, then you never have to delete obsolete backups from disk. The fast recovery area keeps files as specified by the retention policy, and deletes them only when space is needed.

See Also:

Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Reference for the syntax used to delete obsolete backups of CDBs and PDBs

To delete obsolete backups:

  1. Connect RMAN to the target database as described in "Connecting to the Target Database Using RMAN."
  2. Delete all obsolete backups, including backup sets and image copies, using the following command: 
    DELETE OBSOLETE;

    RMAN displays the list of obsolete backups and asks for confirmation about deleting the listed backups.