Templates
Manage reusable Retention Policies, Naming Templates, and Schedule Presets from a single place.
Overview
The Templates page (Administration → Templates) provides three types of reusable building blocks for backup jobs. Instead of configuring retention, filenames, and schedules inline on every job, you define them once here and reference them across all jobs.
Retention Policies
A Retention Policy defines how many backups to keep on a storage destination. Policies are assigned per destination inside the job form.
Policy Modes
Simple - keep the N most recent backups:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Keep | Number of most recent backups to retain |
Smart (GFS) - Grandfather-Father-Son rotation:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Daily | Number of daily backups to keep |
| Weekly | Number of weekly backups to keep |
| Monthly | Number of monthly backups to keep |
| Yearly | Number of yearly backups to keep |
GFS bucketing uses the configured Scheduler Timezone.
Default Policy
Mark one policy as the system default using the star icon. The default policy is applied automatically to any destination that has no explicit policy assigned.
Assigning a Policy to a Job
- Open a job (create or edit)
- Expand a destination row
- Click the Retention Policy picker
- Select a policy from the list
Changing a policy in Templates takes effect on the next retention run for all jobs using it.
Naming Templates
A Naming Template defines the filename pattern for backup files. The system-level pattern is set in Settings → General → Backup Filename Pattern. Naming Templates let you override it per job.
Supported Tokens
| Token | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
{job_name} | Job name | Daily MySQL Backup |
{name} | Job name (legacy alias) | Daily MySQL Backup |
{db_name} | Database name | mydb |
yyyy | 4-digit year | 2026 |
MM | 2-digit month (zero-padded) | 05 |
MMM | Short month name | May |
MMMM | Full month name | January |
dd | 2-digit day | 03 |
HH | 2-digit hour (24h) | 14 |
mm | 2-digit minute | 30 |
ss | 2-digit second | 00 |
Token chips in the template editor are grouped by category (Job Info, Date, Time) and insert at the current cursor position. A live preview updates as you type.
Arbitrary literal text works without escaping - for example prod_{db_name}-yyyy-MM-dd is valid.
Default Naming Template
Mark one template as the system default. It is used for all jobs that have no per-job template assigned.
Assigning a Naming Template to a Job
- Open a job (create or edit)
- In Basic Settings, use the Filename Template picker
- Select a template from the list
Schedule Presets
A Schedule Preset is a named cron expression that can be shared across jobs.
Using a Preset
- Open a job (create or edit)
- In the Schedule field, enable the Preset toggle
- A searchable dropdown of saved presets appears
- Select a preset - the cron expression is filled in automatically
Live-Linked vs. Quick-Fill
- Live-linked - the job stores a reference to the preset. If you update the preset, all linked jobs pick up the new schedule automatically without editing each job.
- Quick-fill - the preset is used as a starting point only. The cron expression is copied into the job; changing the preset later has no effect on this job.
The toggle in the job form controls which mode is used.
Next Steps
- Creating Jobs - Apply templates when configuring jobs
- Retention Policies - Detailed explanation of Simple and GFS retention
- Scheduling - Cron syntax reference