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Found a few similar questions but were not quite a match.
I have a directory for backups (sql) and want to delete all files in that directory older then 7 days leaving any sub-directories intact.
This is what I have:
find /var/log/mbackups -mtime +7 -type f -delete
Is this the proper way to accomplish what I am after?
Your command will look at the top level directory /var/log/mbackups and also descend into any subdirectories, deleting files that match the seven day criterion. It will not delete the directories themselves.
If you want a command to look at files only in the /var/log/mbackups directory, and not descend into subdirectories, you need to add that restriction:
find /var/log/mbackups -maxdepth 1 -mtime +7 -type f -delete
In general you can test the find command by replacing the -delete action with something innocuous, like -print:
find /var/log/mbackups -mtime +7 -type f -print
-mtime +6 (or '(' -mtime 7 -o -mtime +7 ')'), not -mtime +7.
May 10 at 11:53
-delete implies -depth. So, when testing with -print, it's best to include a -depth so you get the same thing as what -delete would do (very important if also using -prune which is ineffective when combined with -depth)
May 10 at 11:58
-delete is a BSD extension, -maxdepth is a GNU extension, though these days both are supported by GNU and most BSDs.
May 10 at 11:59
+7 will be files that are 8 days or older, which answers the question in the way that I have offered. If you're using a granularity of seconds then your suggestion would be correct. That's the wonder of English language ambiguity
With zsh:
rm -f /var/log/mbackups/*(.m+6)
same as:
rm -f /var/log/mbackups/*(.^m-7)
Would remove the regular (with .) files that are not hidden and haven't been modified in the last 7 days. Like for find's -mtime +7, m+7 would match on files whose age rounded down to the next integer number of days is strictly greater than 7, so would match on files that are 8 days old or older (a common pitfall when working with find).
To also remove old hidden files, add the D glob qualifier.
If there's no matching file, you'll get an error message. You can avoid it by adding the N glob qualifier (and rm will then be called without filename argument, but with -f, it should not complain about it).
try this
find /var/log/mbackups -type f -mtime +7 -exec rm -rf {} \;
Warning: -delete is non-standard (nonportable) and risky when using gfind.
Remember that rm has some security restrictions, but the gfind man page does not mention such a restrictions for -delete. I therefore recommend to use the official method:
find /var/log/mbackups -mtime +7 -type f -exec rm {} +
This is not even slower than the non-standard method using -delete.
rm will happily delete a file beginning with ./, for example touch xx; rm ./xx
-delete is from BSD, not GNU and was especially designed to overcome the limitations and security issues of -exec rm. Also note that the OP asked files in subdirectories be left alone.
May 10 at 12:33
-mtime +N. With GNU find,-mtime +7will find files that are at least eight days old.find. It is a POSIX requirement (though IIRC some BSDs are/were not compliant in that regard).