Answers.Body: <p>If you TRUNCATE the table, be sure you do so at a time when there are no in-process contributions or other users actively filling out a form or their submission will be lost. Otherwise, it's safe to do so.</p>
  
  <p>Your backups can just skip that table, no need to back it up. Although you do need to get the structure of the table in order to be able to restore a complete db from your backup.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-07-02T00:18:02.437Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2015-07-02T00:18:02.437Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Coleman
Answers.Body: <p>Best to exclude its content from your backups. You can dump a table's structure only with <code>mysqldump --no-data</code></p>
  
  <p>As Coleman points out, form data is persisted there while a multistep form is being used, so using TRUNCATE will invalidate any forms <em>currently</em> being processed.</p>
  
  <p>You might want to review why your <code>civicrm_cache</code> has grown to this size - check the range of values in <code>created_date</code> and <code>expired_date</code> there. Odds are your CiviCRM isn't "cleaning up" old cache data, and if this was (not) happening you might experience other effects (eg performance degradation).</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-07-02T13:47:08.817Z
Answers.Text: Coleman, Chris... thank you for your swift replies, I suspected this was the case but just needed it confirming. It will save us a approx. £100 / year on our cloud backup service :)
Answers.UserDisplayName: Paul Crabb
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-07-01T23:15:56.087Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2015-07-03T17:56:03.837Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2015-07-03T17:56:03.837Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Chris Burgess
Body: <p>civicrm_cache table is nearly 3GB... does it matter if we empty it, if not can we just not back it up ?</p>
  
Tags: <backups>
Title: Do I need to backup civicrm_cache table in civicrm 4.0.8
ThreadText: # Do I need to backup civicrm_cache table in civicrm 4.0.8
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2015-07-01)
  
  civicrm\_cache table is nearly 3GB... does it matter if we empty it, if not can we just not back it up ?
  
  **Tags:** backups
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 2 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2015-07-02. Score: 4
  
  If you TRUNCATE the table, be sure you do so at a time when there are no in-process contributions or other users actively filling out a form or their submission will be lost. Otherwise, it's safe to do so.
  
  Your backups can just skip that table, no need to back it up. Although you do need to get the structure of the table in order to be able to restore a complete db from your backup.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2015-07-01. Score: 3
  
  Best to exclude its content from your backups. You can dump a table's structure only with `mysqldump --no-data`
  
  As username_1 points out, form data is persisted there while a multistep form is being used, so using TRUNCATE will invalidate any forms *currently* being processed.
  
  You might want to review why your `civicrm_cache` has grown to this size - check the range of values in `created_date` and `expired_date` there. Odds are your CiviCRM isn't "cleaning up" old cache data, and if this was (not) happening you might experience other effects (eg performance degradation).
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: username_1, username_2... thank you for your swift replies, I suspected this was the case but just needed it confirming. It will save us a approx. £100 / year on our cloud backup service :)  
  
  ---
  
  