How to Delete Files Older than X Number of Days in Linux

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <h2 class="title single-title title20" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 24px; line-height: 30px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: opacity 0.24s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline; visibility: visible;"> <u><span style="color: #990000;">Delete Files Older than X Number of Days in Linux</span></u></h2> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">How to keep limited amount of backup files or how to delete backup files or any file than older then x number of Days.</span></span></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1XyDsm5bthyO-_-OqpH89oK8Sw-efgEPeY_inf32JcMAXIYo2vTx-PBhzPdnMbUz0aJXJSiqDm9USNl0cM4lj24WhhGm858N8_Wl43zO7AKVMzSdgXeLDYmhRyHQraYf_12AoDqRPhk4Z/s1600/delete_x_number_files_hackthesec.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1XyDsm5bthyO-_-OqpH89oK8Sw-efgEPeY_inf32JcMAXIYo2vTx-PBhzPdnMbUz0aJXJSiqDm9USNl0cM4lj24WhhGm858N8_Wl43zO7AKVMzSdgXeLDYmhRyHQraYf_12AoDqRPhk4Z/s1600/delete_x_number_files_hackthesec.jpg" /></a></div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><br /></span></span></div> <div> <div style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"> Using find utility we can easily figure out files older than x number of days and then use the rm command to delete them.</div> <div style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"> Here is combination of find and rm command to find and delete older files using some interesting arguments.</div> <div style="font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><b><u><span style="color: #0b5394;">Find All Files Inside Directory and Delete Files which is Older Than 10 Days</span></u></b></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #363636; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-radius: 7px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); font-stretch: inherit; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; overflow-x: auto; overflow-y: hidden; padding: 18px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Monaco, Courier New, DejaVu Sans Mono, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: pre-wrap;">find /location/to/find/files/* -mtime +10 -exec rm {} \;</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><b><u>Command Explanation:</u></b></span></span></div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span></div> <div> <div> <span style="font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><b><span style="color: #333333;">1) </span><span style="color: red;">find /location/to/find/files/*</span></b></span></span></div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">=This command use to find files in Linux operating system. Next part of this command is /locatin/to/find/files/ which means find files inside this directory suppose I have directory on root named backup so my command will be "find /backup/*".</span></span></div> </div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><br /></span></span></div> <div> <span style="font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><div> <b><span style="color: #333333;">2) </span><span style="color: red;">mtime +10</span></b></div> <div style="color: #333333;"> =The next argument -mtime, is used to specify the number of days. In our example we uses -mtime +10 so it will find files older than 10 days.</div> </span></span></div> <div> <div> <span style="font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><b><span style="color: #333333;">3) </span><span style="color: red;">-exec rm {} \;</span></b></span></span></div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">=The last argument contains two parts, "-exec" allows you to pass an other command such as rm, and the second part "{} \; " is required to end the command.</span></span></div> </div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><br /></span></span></div> <div> <span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><b><u>Delete Files which is Older Than 5 Days With .tar File Extension.</u></b></span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #363636; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-radius: 7px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); font-stretch: inherit; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; overflow-x: auto; overflow-y: hidden; padding: 18px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Monaco, Courier New, DejaVu Sans Mono, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: pre-wrap;">find /backup -name "*.tar" -type f -mtime +5 -exec rm -fr {} \;</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><b>Very Important:</b> Be VERY careful to supply an absolute path while using "rm" commands!</span></span></div> <div> <span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><b><u>Find and Delete Files using Find Command.</u></b></span></span></div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">Same task you can perform using find command only. See below example:</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #363636; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-radius: 7px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); font-stretch: inherit; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; overflow-x: auto; overflow-y: hidden; padding: 18px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Monaco, Courier New, DejaVu Sans Mono, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: pre-wrap;">find /location/to/find/files/* -mtime +10 -type f -delete</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">Tip:- you can add this command in bash script and automate this process using <a href="http://www.hackthesec.co.in/2016/03/how-to-setup-linux-crontab.html" target="_blank">cron job utility</a>.</span></span></div> <div> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><br /></span></span></div> <div style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"> <a href="http://www.hackthesec.co.in/">www.hackthesec.co.in</a></div> </div> </div>

How to Delete Files Older than X Number of Days in Linux

Delete Files Older than X Number of Days in Linux How to keep limited amount of backup files or how to delete backup files or any file t...

Read more »