Why a deleted file is still on your bill.
Because Backblaze B2 hides rather than deletes by default. When you delete a file in most B2 tools, B2 writes a hide marker over it: the name disappears from ordinary listings, every stored version stays exactly where it was, and the storage for all of them stays on your bill. Nothing is wrong. It is how B2 versioning works, and it catches almost everyone once.
One of four short guides to B2’s expensive surprises.
What a hide marker is
B2 keeps every version of a file you upload. Uploading over an existing name adds a version, and deleting through most tools adds a hide marker, which is itself a small version whose whole job is to make the name vanish from a normal listing. Backblaze’s documentation describes hiding as the reversible way to remove a file: unhide it and the file is back, exactly as it was. The versions underneath are stored, and billed, until something actually deletes them.
Source: Backblaze docs, file versions.
Making a file actually go away
There are two routes. Delete every version of the file, which is immediate, permanent and cannot be undone. Or write a lifecycle rule that deletes hidden versions after a number of days, which automates the same thing for the whole bucket. The expensive middle state is hiding files with no rule to delete them: the bucket looks tidy and every version is still billed, indefinitely. How the two lifecycle clocks combine is its own surprise, covered in the lifecycle guide.
Seeing it clearly
Bucketree’s object browser has a Current view and an All Versions view. All Versions shows hide markers as what they are, so you can see which names are hidden and what is stored underneath. Delete All Versions removes a file for good, and the confirmation tells you what the current view is hiding rather than inventing a count. If the bucket has a lifecycle rule, the bucket sheet states in a sentence what that rule will actually do.
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