Is it possible to make a script that will delete files in a specific folder, after five days without deleting the folder(s).
I am using Ubuntu server 12 without gui interface.
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3 Answers
To find files last modified more than five days ago:
find /path/to/directory -type f -mtime +4
To delete them at the same time (test the above first):
find /path/to/directory -type f -mtime +4 -delete
To automate it so that you're running this daily, run crontab -e (as the user you wish to run this task) and add:
@daily find /path/to/directory -type f -mtime +4 -delete
An experiment to show which mtime value you want to use. The manual is rubbish. I had assumed +5 was what we wanted but a comment disagreed. The documentation appears to conflict so I started by creating three files, each 1 day apart:
$ mkdir test
$ touch test/now
$ touch -d "1 day ago" test/yesterday
$ touch -d "2 days ago" test/day-before-yesterday
$ ls -l test
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 oli oli 0 Nov 26 13:12 day-before-yesterday
-rw-r--r-- 1 oli oli 0 Nov 28 13:11 now
-rw-r--r-- 1 oli oli 0 Nov 27 13:12 yesterday
If we want something that is between 24-48 hours old exactly, we use 1 without a sign.
$ find test -mtime 1
test/yesterday
But if we want things 24hours +, +1 doesn't work:
$ find test -mtime +1
test/day-before-yesterday
+1 seems to mean "more than what 1 shows"... So +0 is used:
$ find test -mtime +0
test/day-before-yesterday
test/yesterday
All very annoying if you're used to being correct like me... But I'll recover, I'm sure. Thanks for the poke from Adaephon.
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1It probably should be
-mtime +4.-mtime +5would mean 'modified more than 5 days ago' and as any fractional parts are ignore that is essentially 'modified at least 6 days ago'.– AdaephonNov 28, 2013 at 12:39 -
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yes it really isn't that clear. But the meaning of
+nis "more than n" not "at least n" and as fractions are ignored, this means that+1means "more than 48 hours ago". This also means that if you want to say "more than one day ago" you have to write+0. From the ubuntu man page on find:to match -atime +1, a file has to have been accessed at least two days ago.– AdaephonNov 28, 2013 at 13:07 -
@Adaephon I decided to do a quick test to prove it one way or the other. Long story short: Congratulations, you've won an internet.– Oli ♦Nov 28, 2013 at 13:20
Yes you can, use cron jobs Suppose you need to remove files in /tmp/test/ directory after five days then
crontab -e
now add these lines to the last
@weekly rm -fr /tmp/test/
Now the folder will be deleted weekly. For more info click here
What you need is something like
@weekly find /tmp/test -type f -exec rm '{}' +
Note: just rm -rf removes folders too. You could add -mtime for modification time.
Does it has to be five days exactly. Get your favorite days or times in:
Minute - Hour - Day of Month - Month - Day of Week
0 3 0,5,10,15,20,25 * *
Which means 3 AM each five days unless the month is 31 days.
