Schedules

A schedule defines when a backup job runs and how many backups to keep. HetGuard supports three job types: server snapshots, volume backups, and database backups. You can have multiple schedules per server running side by side.

Job Types

• Server snapshot — creates a Hetzner Cloud snapshot of the selected server. Stored in your Hetzner account. No storage provider required.
• Volume backup — archives a directory on your server via SSH and uploads it to a storage provider. Requires an SSH key and a configured storage provider. See Volume Backups.
• Database backup — runs pg_dump or mysqldump via SSH and uploads the compressed dump to a storage provider. See Database Backups.

Creating a Schedule

Navigate to Schedules in the sidebar and click New schedule. You will be asked for:

• Job type — snapshot, volume backup, or database backup.
• Label — a name for this schedule (e.g. web-prod-daily).
• Hetzner account — the connected project that owns the server.
• Server — the Hetzner Cloud server to target.
• Schedule — when to run (see below).
• Retention — how many backups to keep (see below).

Schedule Options

Choose from four preset intervals when creating a schedule:

• Hourly — runs at the top of every hour.
• Daily — runs once per day at 02:00.
• Weekly — runs every Sunday at 02:00.
• Monthly — runs on the 1st of each month at 02:00.

Retention Policy

The retention count controls how many snapshots HetGuard keeps for a given schedule. After each successful snapshot run, HetGuard checks how many snapshots it has created for that job and deletes the oldest ones until the count is at or below the limit.

For example, with a daily schedule and a retention of 7, you will always have the last 7 days of snapshots available.

Plan Limits

The number of active schedules you can have depends on your plan:

• Free — 1 schedule
• Starter — 5 schedules
• Pro — 20 schedules
• Agency — 100 schedules

See Billing & Plans for full plan details.

Running a Job Manually

You can trigger any schedule immediately by clicking the Run now button on the Schedules page. This creates a snapshot right away and does not affect the next scheduled run time. It does count towards your retention limit.

Pausing and Deleting Schedules

You can pause a schedule at any time. Paused schedules do not run but retain their configuration and existing snapshots. Deleting a schedule removes it permanently but does not delete the snapshots it created — those remain in your Hetzner account and can be managed under Snapshots.