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How Long mtdt.io Keeps Metadata

Two different things are cleaned up on a schedule: metadata backups and the metadata loaded into a deployment. They have separate rules.

Metadata backups​

Each org has a retention window, set in its backup settings. When a backup is older than the window it is deleted — except the most recent one for that org, which is always kept.

  • Free — up to 14 days. A shorter window can be set; a longer one is clamped to 14.
  • Pro and Team — up to 180 days, which is also what applies until you set a shorter window.

A backup row shows a countdown when its deletion is less than four days away, so a snapshot you want to keep is visible before it goes.

A backup captured as a deployment's rollback point is excluded: it is kept for as long as the deployment can be rolled back, whatever the org's window says.

Retention applies to backups stored in mtdt.io storage. If the org backs up to your own S3 bucket, deleting the backup in mtdt.io removes mtdt.io's record of it; the archive itself stays in your bucket, and you control its lifecycle there. See Connecting S3 storage.

Backups pushed to a Git repository are ordinary commits in your repository and are never touched by mtdt.io retention.

Metadata loaded into a deployment​

An org-to-org deployment loads the metadata it needs from the source org and keeps it so the diff, the selection and the report stay readable after the run.

That loaded metadata is released 30 days after the deployment was last touched — no runs, no edits, and nobody opening it. The deployment, its history and its result stay; only the loaded component bodies go. Opening the deployment again reloads what it needs from the org.

Opening a deployment — in the UI or through the MCP server — counts as activity and restarts the 30 days.

Deployments from a Git branch or from a backup are not affected: their source is the repository or the archive. Comparisons and an org's metadata browser are not affected either.

What is never cleaned up automatically​

  • Deployment history, results and reports.
  • Rollback points captured by a deployment.
  • Audit log entries. The automatic release of a deployment's metadata is recorded there as well.