I would add an option to the rolling appender to start a new file not only when the trigger fires but also when the system is started. This doesn't seem to be a difficult task but there are several possible solutions: -it can be an option of the current trigger implementations. As I know actually there is only one trigger implementation, the other trigger type is only implicitly used with time based rolling -it can be a standalone trigger, this is also useful if we don't want to limit the size of the log file -there is an existing attribute of the file appender, named "append". This attribute already has a very similar (the same?) meaning. It causes to start a new log file on startup (i.e. delete its previous content). Currently if this "append" attribute is switched on then the rolling appender literally follows the previous definition and it overwrites the previous content of the last file, instead of rolling the last file. It is unlikely that this is what the user wants. For me the last alternative seems to be the best. What do you think?