Delete files older than 15 days using PowerShell

Question

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

just simply  PowerShell V5   Get-ChildItem  C  temp  -Recurse -File   Where CreationTime -lt   Get-Date  AddDays -15     Remove-Item -Force

User · Answer

Another alternative  15  gets typed to  timespan  automatically    ls -file   where    get-date  -    creationtime -gt 15      Remove-Item -Verbose

User · Answer

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   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

User · Answer

----- 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-Children  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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

Try this   dir C  PURGE -recurse    where     get-date -   creationTime  days -gt 15      remove-item -force

[powershell] Delete files older than 15 days using PowerShell

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