Does Simple File Versioning ever remove deleted files?

I’m using Syncthing to replicate backup files to other servers. The backup files have date-stamp in the name, so they don’t actually replace old ones, the backup software just deletes backups once they reach the rotation limit.

If I have simple file versioning set to 5 on the backup servers, will Syncthing ever delete the rotated (deleted) backups since they have never been replaced by new versions? My reading of the docs leads me to believe that they will not be deleted, or am I misreading them?

Sorry, my mistake, I read staggered, not simple file versioning.

Please ignore the following text as it is not an answer to your question.

This is my understanding and experience:

When your backups are deleted from your “syncthing-master-device” (the one, which replicates the backups to your other servers) by your backup-software, they will moved to the .stversions directory on each of the servers by syncthing. The files in this .stversions directory will stay for 5 days (as you stated above) and then will be deleted by the syncthing file versioning tool.

So you have a backup for the backup for 5 more days.

No they won’t as its effectively different files. If you have versioned files whats the point of versioning versioned files?

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My thought exactly, but I wanted to be sure that it wasn’t just my magical thinking.

Trashcan versioning with an expiration limit would be better for this.

Why version versioned backups at all? If some hacker (or overly “sleepy” admin, to the extent there is a difference) deletes the “master” backup files, Syncthing versioning will preserve the replicated backups for enough time to arrange recovery and counseling.

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