---
name: "borg2-match-archives"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "borgbackup2"
version: "2.0.0b19-1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/borg2-match-archives"
---

# borg2-match-archives(1)

Details regarding match-archives

## NAME

borg-match-archives - Details regarding match-archives

## DESCRIPTION

The **--match-archives** option matches a given pattern against the list of all archives in the repository. It can be given multiple times.

The patterns can have a prefix of:

- •

  name: pattern match on the archive name (default)

- •

  aid: prefix match on the archive id (only one result allowed)

- •

  user: exact match on the username who created the archive

- •

  host: exact match on the hostname where the archive was created

- •

  tags: match on the archive tags

In case of a name pattern match, it uses pattern styles similar to the ones described by **borg help patterns**:

- **Identical match pattern, selector id: (default)**

  Simple string match, must fully match exactly as given.

- **Shell-style patterns, selector sh:**

  Match like on the shell, wildcards like *\** and *?* work.

- **Regular expressions \<https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html\>**

  , selector **re:** Full regular expression support. This is very powerful, but can also get rather complicated.

Examples:

```
# name match, id: style
borg delete --match-archives 'id:archive-with-crap'
borg delete -a 'id:archive-with-crap'  # same, using short option
borg delete -a 'archive-with-crap'  # same, because 'id:' is the default
# name match, sh: style
borg delete -a 'sh:home-kenny-*'
# name match, re: style
borg delete -a 're:pc[123]-home-(user1|user2)-2022-09-.*'
# archive id prefix match:
borg delete -a 'aid:d34db33f'
# host or user match
borg delete -a 'user:kenny'
borg delete -a 'host:kenny-pc'
# tags match
borg delete -a 'tags:TAG1' -a 'tags:TAG2'
```

## AUTHOR

The Borg Collective