Files.com includes a File Expiration feature to automatically delete files that have existed on your site for a specified number of days.

For users that have admin rights to a folder, this feature can be found by navigating into the folder you want to configure and select the Folder settings. There you can click on the File Expiration setting and specify the number of days after which files should be deleted. Site administrators can view all of the expiration settings for all folders at once; type "File expiration" in the search bar at the top of each page, then select the matching result.

File expiration settings will apply to all files retroactively. This means if you have files older than the time frame you choose, those files will begin to be deleted within 24 hours of updating this setting.

The deletion of expired files occurs daily. Once per day, files in the affected folder and its subfolders, will have their age checked and, if the file is older than the specified retention period, the file will be deleted.

The duration of the deletion depends on the quantity of files being deleted, and the width and depth of the folder hierarchy containing those files.

This setting only affects files, so your folder structure will be left intact.

File Expiration settings will not currently work with remote mounted folders, however we hope to lift this limitation in the future.

There is no charge to use File Expiration capabilities.

How Expiration Activity Will Show in Logs

When Files.com performs its automated file expiration sweeps and deletes files, those deletions are recorded in the history logs just like any other deletion. The logs will show that the deletion was performed by the user "robot".

Overriding Settings in Subfolders or Excluding Subfolders Entirely

Subfolders can have a different expiration setting from the parent folder. You can also exclude subfolders from automated file expiration entirely. Any user with admin privileges on the folder is able to apply overrides to this setting on a per-folder basis.

To exclude a subfolder from expiration entirely when a parent folder has an expiration policy, access the settings for the folder you want to exclude from the expiration policy. Then set the option to Never delete files in this folder. Repeat the process for any other folders you wish to exclude.

Alternatively, you can navigate directly to a folder you wish to exclude in the files view and open its folder settings. Scroll down to File expiration; you should see that the folder is set to inherit the expiration behavior from the parent. Change the setting and make the selection you would like for this folder.

Retaining Deleted Files

The File Expiration folder setting deletes active files after a specified interval. There is a separate capability that determines how long Deleted Files are retained as backups that are restorable by our support team. Site administrators can access this setting by typing "Keep deleted files for" in the search box at the top of every page, then clicking on the matching result. You can set an infinite retention by setting this value to 99999 days.

The setting for retaining deleted files will apply to all deleted files retroactively and will take up to 24 hours for files to be removed after changing this setting. The storage used to store these files will count in your site's usage.

This feature is not meant to replace proper File Versioning support (which is a long requested feature that we hope to implement in the future), but it does provide a way to restore previous versions of files if they were uploaded via the Web app as a fresh upload.

Files modified using FTP, SFTP, or other apps that modify files inline without uploading them as a fresh upload may not be stored as a fresh version for restoration purposes.

Each restore requires a manual request to our Customer Support team and can take a while to get processed, and is really meant for emergency purposes only, not routine business use. A Self Service restoration option ("Trash Can" or "Recycle Bin") is an often requested feature that we hope to implement in the future.