CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershellpowershell-2.0powershell-3.0
user2470170
user2470170

Reputation: 2480

Delete files older than 15 days using PowerShell

I would like to delete only the files that were created more than 15 days ago in a particular folder. How could I do this using PowerShell?

Upvotes: 243

Views: 552725

Answers (12)

Safwan
Safwan

Reputation: 360

This is just a minor improvement to the already provided answers. Basically the command uses the Filter parameter to improve performance based on the following quote from Get-ChildItem

The Filter parameter is more efficient than other parameters. The FileSystem provider applies filter when the cmdlet gets the objects rather than having PowerShell filter the objects after they're retrieved.

$FolderPath = 'C:\Logs '
$FileExtension = 'log'
$OlderThan = 15 # Days.

Get-ChildItem -Path $FolderPath -File -Filter "*.$FileExtension" | Where-Object {$_.CreationTime -LT (Get-Date).AddDays(-$OlderThan)} | Remove-Item -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

If you want to traverse $FolderPath, then add Recurse to the command:

Get-ChildItem -Path $FolderPath -Recurse -File -Filter "*.$FileExtension" | Where-Object {$_.CreationTime -LT (Get-Date).AddDays(-$OlderThan)} | Remove-Item -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

If you want to include hidden and system files, then add Force to the command:

Get-ChildItem -Path $FolderPath -Force -File -Filter "*.$FileExtension" | Where-Object {$_.CreationTime -LT (Get-Date).AddDays(-$OlderThan)} | Remove-Item -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

If you want to delete files that have not been modified in $OlderThan instead of been created $OlderThan age, replace $.CreationTime with $.LastWriteTime

Get-ChildItem -Path $FolderPath -File -Filter "*.$FileExtension" | Where-Object {$_.CreationTime -LT (Get-Date).AddDays(-$OlderThan)} | Remove-Item -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Upvotes: 0

Ikruzzz
Ikruzzz

Reputation: 258

#----- Define parameters -----#
#----- Get current date ----#
$Now = Get-Date
$Days = "15" #----- define amount of days ----#
$Targetfolder = "C:\Logs" #----- define folder where files are located ----#
$Extension = "*.log" #----- define extension ----#
$Lastwrite = $Now.AddDays(-$Days)

#----- Get files based on lastwrite filter and specified folder ---#
$Files = Get-Childitem $Targetfolder -include $Extension -Recurse | where {$_.LastwriteTime -le "$Lastwrite"}

foreach ($File in $Files)
{
    if ($File -ne $Null)
    {
        write-host "Deleting File $File" backgroundcolor "DarkRed"
        Remove-item $File.Fullname | out-null
    }
    else {
        write-host "No more files to delete" -forgroundcolor "Green"
    }
}

Upvotes: 3

Karabakh Azerbaijan
Karabakh Azerbaijan

Reputation: 317

The following code will delete files older than 15 days in a folder.

$Path = 'C:\Temp'
$Daysback = "-15"
$CurrentDate = Get-Date
$DatetoDelete = $CurrentDate.AddDays($Daysback)
Get-ChildItem $Path -Recurse  | Where-Object { $_.LastWriteTime -lt $DatetoDelete } | Remove-Item

Upvotes: 1

deadlydog
deadlydog

Reputation: 24424

The given answers will only delete files (which admittedly is what is in the title of this post), but here's some code that will first delete all of the files older than 15 days, and then recursively delete any empty directories that may have been left behind. My code also uses the -Force option to delete hidden and read-only files as well. Also, I chose to not use aliases as the OP is new to PowerShell and may not understand what gci, ?, %, etc. are.

$limit = (Get-Date).AddDays(-15)
$path = "C:\Some\Path"

# Delete files older than the $limit.
Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Recurse -Force | Where-Object { !$_.PSIsContainer -and $_.CreationTime -lt $limit } | Remove-Item -Force

# Delete any empty directories left behind after deleting the old files.
Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Recurse -Force | Where-Object { $_.PSIsContainer -and (Get-ChildItem -Path $_.FullName -Recurse -Force | Where-Object { !$_.PSIsContainer }) -eq $null } | Remove-Item -Force -Recurse

And of course if you want to see what files/folders will be deleted before actually deleting them, you can just add the -WhatIf switch to the Remove-Item cmdlet call at the end of both lines.

If you only want to delete files that haven't been updated in 15 days, vs. created 15 days ago, then you can use $_.LastWriteTime instead of $_.CreationTime.

The code shown here is PowerShell v2.0 compatible, but I also show this code and the faster PowerShell v3.0 code as handy reusable functions on my blog.

Upvotes: 411

Jeff Blumenthal
Jeff Blumenthal

Reputation: 472

If you are having problems with the above examples on a Windows 10 box, try replacing .CreationTime with .LastwriteTime. This worked for me.

dir C:\locationOfFiles -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Where { ((Get-Date)-$_.LastWriteTime).days -gt 15 } | Remove-Item -Force

Upvotes: 7

Esperento57
Esperento57

Reputation: 17492

just simply (PowerShell V5)

Get-ChildItem "C:\temp" -Recurse -File | Where CreationTime -lt  (Get-Date).AddDays(-15)  | Remove-Item -Force

Upvotes: 100

KERR
KERR

Reputation: 1722

Esperento57's script doesn't work in older PowerShell versions. This example does:

Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\temp" -Recurse -force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | where {($_.LastwriteTime -lt  (Get-Date).AddDays(-15) ) -and (! $_.PSIsContainer)} | select name| Remove-Item -Verbose -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Upvotes: 8

js2010
js2010

Reputation: 27546

Another alternative (15. gets typed to [timespan] automatically):

ls -file | where { (get-date) - $_.creationtime -gt 15. } | Remove-Item -Verbose

Upvotes: 4

Shay Levy
Shay Levy

Reputation: 126902

Basically, you iterate over files under the given path, subtract the CreationTime of each file found from the current time, and compare against the Days property of the result. The -WhatIf switch will tell you what will happen without actually deleting the files (which files will be deleted), remove the switch to actually delete the files:

$old = 15
$now = Get-Date

Get-ChildItem $path -Recurse |
Where-Object {-not $_.PSIsContainer -and $now.Subtract($_.CreationTime).Days -gt $old } |
Remove-Item -WhatIf

Upvotes: 17

Aigar
Aigar

Reputation: 21

$limit = (Get-Date).AddDays(-15)
$path = "C:\Some\Path"

# Delete files older than the $limit.
Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Force | Where-Object { !$_.PSIsContainer -and $_.CreationTime -lt $limit } | Remove-Item -Force -Recurse

This will delete old folders and it content.

Upvotes: 2

Ansgar Wiechers
Ansgar Wiechers

Reputation: 200473

Another way is to subtract 15 days from the current date and compare CreationTime against that value:

$root  = 'C:\root\folder'
$limit = (Get-Date).AddDays(-15)

Get-ChildItem $root -Recurse | ? {
  -not $_.PSIsContainer -and $_.CreationTime -lt $limit
} | Remove-Item

Upvotes: 21

Roland Jansen
Roland Jansen

Reputation: 2783

Try this:

dir C:\PURGE -recurse | 
where { ((get-date)-$_.creationTime).days -gt 15 } | 
remove-item -force

Upvotes: 10

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