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

# borg2-repo-space(1)

Manage reserved space in repository

## NAME

borg-repo-space - Manage reserved space in repository

## SYNOPSIS

borg \[common options\] repo-space \[options\]

## DESCRIPTION

This command manages reserved space in a repository.

Borg can not work in disk-full conditions (can not lock a repo and thus can not run prune/delete or compact operations to free disk space).

To avoid running into dead-end situations like that, you can put some objects into a repository that take up some disk space. If you ever run into a disk-full situation, you can free that space and then borg will be able to run normally, so you can free more disk space by using prune/delete/compact. After that, don't forget to reserve space again, in case you run into that situation again at a later time.

Examples:

```
# Create a new repository:
$ borg repo-create ...
# Reserve approx. 1GB of space for emergencies:
$ borg repo-space --reserve 1G
# Check amount of reserved space in the repository:
$ borg repo-space
# EMERGENCY! Free all reserved space to get things back to normal:
$ borg repo-space --free
$ borg prune ...
$ borg delete ...
$ borg compact -v  # only this actually frees space of deleted archives
$ borg repo-space --reserve 1G  # reserve space again for next time
```

Reserved space is always rounded up to use full reservation blocks of 64MiB.

## OPTIONS

See *[borg-common(1)](/borg-common/1.md)* for common options of Borg commands.

### options

- **--reserve** *SPACE*

  Amount of space to reserve (e.g. 100M, 1G). Default: 0.

- **--free**

  Free all reserved space. Don't forget to reserve space later again.

## SEE ALSO

*[borg-common(1)](/borg-common/1.md)*

## AUTHOR

The Borg Collective