The files you delete from your computer or de-select from your backup set remain on our servers for 7 days to 7+ years depending on the retention length you have set in the backup software software. Files in retention can be restored at any time.
During backup, if backup software finds that you have deleted a file (or updated a file) on your computer, it will put the corresponding updated/moved/deleted file already backed up on the backup server into a retention area. The retention policy setting defines how long files inside the retention area will be kept on the backup server before they are deleted automatically from the server.
Retention policy will only affect “retained” files (i.e. files that have already been deleted or updated on your computer and thus are moved to the retention area of the backup server).
For those files that have not been updated/moved/deleted on your computer, the backup of these files is kept in the data area on the backup server and won’t be affected by the setting of retention policy. These data of unchanged files will stay on the backup server forever until the original files are removed (or updated) from your computer.
Also see: How do CUSTOM retention policies work?
