Why are there extra files in my Rackspace Cloud Files / OpenStack container?

When you upload larger files to Rackspace Cloud Files or OpenStack (Rackspace’s product is based on OpenStack), an object (file) appears in your container for each separate “chunk” (portion) of that file.

That is part of the design of OpenStack / Cloud Files.

The final file actually occupies zero extra space (for your billing purposes); it is a special file that knows that it is composed of the separate chunks. So, do not delete any of those chunks – because if you do, then the final file will be having its parts removed and become unusable.

Leave it to UpdraftPlus to manage – when it deletes the backup file itself, it will delete the chunks too.

In UpdraftPlus, because it needs to work on even the most resource-starved of WordPress installations, “larger file” means anything more than 5 megabytes.

Conversely, if you are seeking to download your backups from Rackspace Cloud Files (or whatever your OpenStack flavour is), then you can ignore all the chunk files – you just want the main file. The “chunk” files have names ending in an underscore followed by a number, e.g. _1, _2, _3 (etc.). Those are the ones you can ignore – you just want those ending in .zip (for file backups) or .gz (for databases – or .gz.crypt for encrypted databases).