Patent attributes
Disclosed are various embodiments for garbage collection for object-based storage systems. A first set of objects stored by an object storage service that have been accessed within a previously defined date range is identified. Then, a second set of objects stored by the object storage service is identified based at least in part on a relationship to one or more objects in the first set of objects. Next, a third set of objects stored by the object storage service that have been created prior to a predefined date is identified. Then, a subset of objects which are members of the third set of objects and not members of the first set of objects or the second set of objects is identified. Finally, a retention action is performed on individual members of the subset of objects based at least in part on a retention policy.