MySQL Bin Files Eating Lots of Disk Space

If you have binary logging enabled on your MySQL server (i.e. the log-bin parameter is set in your MySQL configuration file), then you may notice a buildup of rather large files in your MySQL data directory over time (e.g. mysql-bin.000013). Generally speaking, you only need to enable this binary logging if your server is acting as a Replication Master or if you need the ability to do point in time recovery from your latest backup.

In any case, here are some useful commands for purging your binary log files:

To delete all binary logs older than 7 days:


To purge all logs before a specific date:

mysql> PURGE MASTER LOGS BEFORE '2008-01-01 00:00:00';

To purge logs automatically (every Monday at 3am) you could use a Unix cron job:

0 3 * * mon mysql -uroot -e "PURGE BINARY LOGS BEFORE DATE_SUB( NOW( ), INTERVAL 7

The purpose of MySQL Binary Log

The binary log has two important purposes:


Disable MySQL binlogging

# vi /etc/my.cnf


You also need to remove or comment following lines:

#expire_logs_days        = 10
#max_binlog_size = 100M

Close and save the file. Finally, restart mysql server:
# service mysql restart

Purge Master Logs



