Deleting archive logs matter, no matter whether they are backed up or not

It is sometimes useful to delete the archive logs without backing them up. In my case, I need time and disk space before taking the backup to the tape, which will be accomplished by backup team.

Also it could be done permananently, in order to make your database run in archive log mode but without consuming so much disk space, which will enable you to recover from media failures.

Excerpt from OTN discussion, thank you Arul for the below lines:

To delete all archivelog on disk no matter wether they are backed up or not …

RMAN > delete archivelog all;

To delete all archivelog on disk no matter wether they are backed up or not and they are one day old …

RMAN > delete archivelog all completed before ‘sysdate -1’;

http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=2033883

In order to continue full backup of archivelogs you must issue below statements:

[oracle@mydb]:/nsr/rman/log> rman target /

RMAN> crosscheck archivelog all;
RMAN> delete noprompt expired archivelog all;