I have found the command to delete files older than 5 days in a folder
find /path/to/files* -mtime +5 -exec rm {} \;
But how do I also do this for subdirectories in that folder?
4 Answers
Be careful with special file names (spaces, quotes) when piping to rm.
There is a safe alternative - the -delete option:
find /path/to/directory/ -mindepth 1 -mtime +5 -delete
That's it, no separate rm call and you don't need to worry about file names.
Replace -delete with -depth -print to test this command before you run it (-delete implies -depth).
Explanation:
-mindepth 1: without this,.(the directory itself) might also match and therefore get deleted.-mtime +5: process files whose data was last modified 5*24 hours ago.
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38
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4Alternatively, if you want to do the same for all files NEWER than five days: find /path/to/directory/ -mindepth 1 -mtime -5 -delete– zmontecaApr 19, 2016 at 17:29
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3
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36Note that every
findargument is a filter that uses the result of the previous filter as input. So make sure you add the -delete as the last argument. IE:find . -delete -mtime +5will delete EVERYTHING in the current path.– JohanJan 1, 2019 at 11:39 -
4With option
-mminin place of-mtime, you can specify time in terms of minutes.– zyyJan 30, 2020 at 2:31
Note that this command will not work when it finds too many files. It will yield an error like:
bash: /usr/bin/find: Argument list too long
Meaning the exec system call's limit on the length of a command line was exceeded. Instead of executing rm that way it's a lot more efficient to use xargs. Here's an example that works:
find /root/Maildir/ -mindepth 1 -type f -mtime +14 | xargs rm
This will remove all files (type f) modified longer than 14 days ago under /root/Maildir/ recursively from there and deeper (mindepth 1). See the find manual for more options.
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9Per @AfshinHamedi's answer on AskUbuntu (askubuntu.com/questions/589210/removing-files-older-than-7-day), be careful with files containing newlines and special characters. Instead use
find /root/Maildir/ -mindepth 1 -type f -mtime +14 -print0 | xargs -r0 rm --– CbhiheJul 12, 2016 at 8:17 -
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It's the same. You just have to provide the parent directory rather than the prefix of files. In your example, it would be:
find /path/to -type f -mtime +5 -exec rm {} \;
This will delete all the files older than 5 days which are under /path/to and its sub-directories.
To delete empty sub-directories, refer to @Costas comment above.
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4Note that for each and every file you will execute the rm command. If you have 1000 files older than 5 days then rm will get started 1000 times. For this reason consider the -delete option as in Costa's comment or -exec rm {} \+– HennesApr 7, 2015 at 17:14
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@Hennes: -- 1) not sure you need to escape
+in that case. -- 2) better to write-exec rm '{}' +to fend off the evil of files with special characters (spaces, newlines, etc...) in their name.– CbhiheJul 12, 2016 at 9:04 -
Note that with
-exec rm {} +, if there are too many files,rmmay complain:Argument list too long. So yes,-deletedoes seem like the much more sensible option. Oct 29, 2021 at 13:48
find . -mtime +3 -type f -not -name '*pid*' |xargs rm -rf
find /path/to -type d -empty -deleterm test one. (Which will delete a file called "test" and a file called "one", but not a file called "test one"). Hint: -delete or -print0findto avoid issues with special characters, as mentioned in the answer's first line. E.g.:find /path/to/files/ -exec somecommand '{}' \;