Batch file to delete files older than N days

Question

I am looking for a way to delete all files older than 7 days in a batch file   I ve searched around the web  and found some examples with hundreds of lines of code  and others that required installing extra command line utilities to accomplish the task   Similar things can be done in BASH in just a couple lines of code  It seems that something at least remotely easy could be done for batch files in Windows  I m looking for a solution that works in a standard Windows command prompt  without any extra utilities  Please no PowerShell or Cygwin either

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Gosh  a lot of answers already  A simple and convenient route I found was to execute ROBOCOPY EXE twice in sequential order from a single Windows command line instruction using the  amp  parameter   ROBOCOPY EXE SOURCE-DIR TARGET-DIR      MOV  MINAGE 30  amp  ROBOCOPY EXE SOURCE-DIR TARGET-DIR      MOV  MINAGE 30  PURGE   In this example it works by picking all files     that are older than 30 days old and moving them to the target folder  The second command does the same again with the addition of the PURGE command which means remove files in the target folder that don   t exist in the source folder  So essentially  the first command MOVES files and the second DELETES because they no longer exist in the source folder when the second command is invoked   Consult ROBOCOPY s documentation and use the  L switch when testing

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Copy this code and save it as DelOldFiles vbs   USAGE IN CMD    cscript   nologo DelOldFiles vbs 15  15 means to delete files older than 15 days in past      copy from here     Function DeleteOlderFiles whichfolder         Dim fso  f  f1  fc  n  ThresholdDate        Set fso   CreateObject  Scripting FileSystemObject          Set f   fso GetFolder whichfolder         Set fc   f Files        Set objArgs   WScript Arguments        n   0        If objArgs Count 0 Then            howmuchdaysinpast   0        Else            howmuchdaysinpast   -objArgs 0         End If        ThresholdDate   DateAdd  d   howmuchdaysinpast  Date            For Each f1 in fc      If f1 DateLastModified lt ThresholdDate Then         Wscript StdOut WriteLine f1         f1 Delete         n   n   1          End If        Next        Wscript StdOut WriteLine  Deleted    amp  n  amp    file s        End Function      If Not WScript FullName   WScript Path  amp    cscript exe  Then       WScript Echo  USAGE ONLY IN COMMAND PROMPT  cscript DelOldFiles vbs 15   amp  vbCrLf  amp   15 means to delete files older than 15 days in past         WScript Quit 0        End If      DeleteOlderFiles        to here

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My script to delete files older than a specific year     REM         GENERATE A CMD TO DELETE FILES OLDER THAN A GIVEN YEAR  REM          given in  olderthanyear variable   REM          you must LOCALIZE the script depending on the dir cmd console output   REM          we assume here the following line s format  11 06 2017  15 04            58  389 SpeechToText zip     set  targetdir c  temp  set  olderthanyear 2017   set  outfile1   temp  deleteoldfiles 1 tmp txt   set  outfile2   temp  deleteoldfiles 2 tmp txt      if not exist    targetdir    call  process error 1 DIR NOT FOUND    targetdir     amp   goto  end    main    dir  a-d-h-s  s  b   targetdir    gt   outfile1     for  F  tokens      F in   type   outfile1    do  call  process file path    F    outfile2     goto  end   end    rem     cleanup and exit    if exist   outfile1  del   outfile1     if exist   outfile2  del   outfile2     goto  eof   process file path  1  2    rem     get date info of the  1 file path    dir  1   find       find      gt   2    for  F  tokens      L in   type  2   do  call  process line    L   1    goto  eof   process line  1  2    rem     generate a del command for each file older than   olderthanyear     set  var  1    rem  LOCALIZE HERE  char-offset string-length     set  fileyear   var  0 4     set  fileyear   var  7 4     set  filepath  2    if   fileyear  LSS   olderthanyear  echo  REM   fileyear     if   fileyear  LSS   olderthanyear  echo  del   filepath     goto  eof   process error  1  2    echo RC  1 MSG  2  3    goto  eof

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IMO  JavaScript is gradually becoming a universal scripting standard  it is probably available in more products than any other scripting language  in Windows  it is available using the Windows Scripting Host   I have to clean out old files in lots of folders  so here is a JavaScript function to do that      run from an administrator command prompt  or from task scheduler with full rights    wscript jscript js    debug with    wscript  d  x jscript js  var fs   WScript CreateObject  Scripting FileSystemObject     clearFolder  C   temp  cleanup     function clearFolder folderPath           calculate date 3 days ago     var dateNow   new Date        var dateTest   new Date        dateTest setDate dateNow getDate   - 3        var folder   fs GetFolder folderPath       var files   folder Files       for  var it   new Enumerator files    it atEnd    it moveNext                   var file   it item             if  file DateLastModified  lt  dateTest                        var filename   file name              var ext   filename split      pop   toLowerCase                 if  ext     exe   amp  amp  ext     dll                                 file Delete true                                      var subfolders   new Enumerator folder SubFolders       for     subfolders atEnd    subfolders moveNext                  clearFolder subfolders item   Path             For each folder to clear  just add another call to the clearFolder   function  This particular code also preserves exe and dll files  and cleans up subfolders as well

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Have a look at my answer to a similar question   REM del old bat REM usage  del old MM-DD-YYY for  f  tokens      a IN   xcopy      d  1  L  I null   do if exist    nxa echo    nxa  gt  gt  FILES TO KEEP TXT for  f  tokens      a IN   xcopy      L  I  EXCLUDE FILES TO KEEP TXT null   do if exist     nxa  del     nxa    This deletes files older than a given date  I m sure it can be modified to go back seven days from the current date   update  I notice that HerbCSO has improved on the above script  I recommend using his version instead

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I think e James s answer is good since it works with unmodified versions of Windows as early as Windows 2000 SP4  and possibly earlier   but it required writing to an external file  Here is a modified version that does not create an external text file while maintaining the compatibility   REM del old cmd REM usage  del old MM-DD-YYYY setlocal enabledelayedexpansion for  f  tokens      a IN   xcopy      d  1  L  I null   do  if exist     nxa  set  excludefiles  excludefiles      nxa    for  f  tokens      a IN   dir  b   do    echo   excludefiles   FINDSTR  C      a    gt nul    if exist     nxa  DEL  F  Q    a  gt nul 2 gt  amp 1    To be true to the original question  here it is in a script that does ALL the math for you if you call it with the number of days as the parameter   REM del old compute cmd REM usage  del old compute N setlocal enabledelayedexpansion set  a days  1 amp set cur y  DATE  10 4  amp set cur m  DATE  4 2  amp set cur d  DATE  7 2  for  f  tokens 1 delims      a in   set cur    do if     a  0 1     0  set  a   a    a  1 1  0 set mo 2 28 amp set  a leapyear cur y 10 4 if  leapyear  -1  equ 0 set mo 2 29 set mo 1 31 amp set mo 3 31 amp set mo 4 30 amp set mo 5 31 set mo 6 30 amp set mo 7 31 amp set mo 8 31 amp set mo 9 30 set mo 10 31 amp set mo 11 30 amp set mo 12 31 set  a past y  days 365  set  a monthdays days-  past y 365    past y 4  1   amp  amp set  a past y cur y-past y amp set months 0  setmonth set  a minusmonth  cur m-1 -months if  minusmonth  leq 0 set  a minusmonth  12 set  a checkdays  mo  minusmonth   if  monthdays  geq  checkdays  set  a months  1 amp set  a monthdays- checkdays amp goto  setmonth set  a past m cur m-months set  a lastmonth cur m-1 if  lastmonth  leq 0 set  a lastmonth  12 set  a lastmonth mo  lastmonth  set  a past d cur d-monthdays amp set adddays    if  past d  leq 0  set  a past m- 1 amp set adddays   if  past m  leq 0  set  a past m  12 amp set  a past y- 1  set mo 2 28 amp set  a leapyear past y 10 4 if  leapyear  -1  equ 0 set mo 2 29  adddays set  a past d  mo  past m  set d  past m - past d - past y  for  f  tokens      a IN   xcopy      d  d   L  I null   do  if exist     nxa  set  excludefiles  excludefiles      nxa    for  f  tokens      a IN   dir  b   do    echo   excludefiles   FINDSTR  C      a    gt nul    if exist     nxa  DEL  F  Q    a  gt nul 2 gt  amp 1    NOTE  The code above takes into account leap years  as well as the exact number of days in each month  The only maximum is the total number of days there have been since 0 0 0  after that it returns negative years    NOTE  The math only goes one way  it cannot correctly get future dates from negative input  it will try  but will likely go past the last day of the month

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This one did it for me  It works with a date and you can substract the wanted amount in years to go back in time    echo off  set m  date  -7 2  set  A m set dateYear  date  -4 4  set  A dateYear -  2 set DATE DIR  date  -10 2   m   dateYear    forfiles  p  C  your path here    s  m      d - DATE DIR   c  cmd  c del  path  F   pause   the  F in the cmd  c del  path  F forces the specific file to be deleted in some the cases the file can be read-only   the dateYear is the year Variable and there you can change the substract to your own needs

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Use forfiles    There are different versions  Early ones use unix style parameters    My version  for server 2000 - note no space after switches -   forfiles -p C  what ever  -s -m    -d lt number of days gt  -c cmd  c del  path    To add forfiles to XP  get the exe from ftp   ftp microsoft com ResKit y2kfix x86   and add it to C  WINDOWS system32

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Delete all Files older than 3 days forfiles -p  quot C  folder quot  -m     -d -3 -c  quot cmd   c del  q  path quot   Delete Directories older than 3 days forfiles -p  quot C  folder quot  -d -3 -c  quot cmd   c IF  isdir    TRUE rd  S  Q  path quot

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How about this modification on 7daysclean cmd to take a leap year into account   It can be done in less than 10 lines of coding   set  a Leap 0 if  Month GEQ 2 and   Years 4 EQL 0 and Years 100 NEQ 0  or Years 400 EQL 0   set  a Leap day set  a Months   months  Leap     Edit by Mofi   The condition above contributed by J R  evaluates always to false because of invalid syntax   And Month GEQ 2 is also wrong because adding 86400 seconds for one more day must be done in a leap year only for the months March to December  but not for February   A working code to take leap day into account - in current year only - in batch file 7daysclean cmd posted by Jay would be   set  LeapDaySecs 0  if  Month  LEQ 2 goto CalcMonths set  a  LeapRule Years  4  if  LeapRule  NEQ 0 goto CalcMonths rem The other 2 rules can be ignored up to year 2100  set  A  LeapDaySecs day   CalcMonths set  a Months   months  LeapDaySecs

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this is nothing amazing  but i needed to do something like this today and run it as scheduled task etc   batch file  DelFilesOlderThanNDays bat below with sample exec w  params      DelFilesOlderThanNDays bat 7 C  dir1 dir2 dir3 logs   log   echo off cls Echo  SET keepDD  1 SET logPath  2    example C  dir1 dir2 dir3 logs SET logFileExt  3 SET check 0 IF   3  EQU    SET logFileExt   log  amp  echo  file extention not specified  default set to    log   IF   2  EQU    echo  file directory no specified  a required parameter   exiting   amp  EXIT  B  IF   1  EQU    echo  number of days not specified     echo  echo  in path    logPath    echo  finding all files like    logFileExt    echo  older than    keepDD    days echo           LOG echo    gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt echo  executed on  DATE   TIME   gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt echo  ----------------------------------------------------------  gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt echo  in path    logPath     gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt echo  finding all files like    logFileExt     gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt echo  older than    keepDD    days  gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt echo  ----------------------------------------------------------  gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt    FORFILES  p  logPath   s  m  logFileExt   d - keepDD   c  cmd  c echo  path   gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt 2 lt  amp 1 IF  ERRORLEVEL  EQU 0    FORFILES  p  logPath   s  m  logFileExt   d - keepDD   c  cmd  c echo  path             LOG IF  ERRORLEVEL  EQU 0    echo    gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt  echo  deleting files      gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt  echo    gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt  SET check 1         IF  check  EQU 1    FORFILES  p  logPath   s  m  logFileExt   d - keepDD   c  cmd  c del  path          RETURN  amp  LOG    IF  ERRORLEVEL  EQU 0 echo  deletion successfull   amp  echo  deletion successfull   gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt echo  ----------------------------------------------------------  gt  gt  c  trimLogFiles logBat log txt

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forfiles  p  v    s  m      d -3  c  cmd  c del  path    You should do  d -3  3 days earlier  This works fine for me  So all the complicated batches could be in the trash bin  Also forfiles don t support UNC paths  so make a network connection to a specific drive

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ROBOCOPY works great for me   Originally suggested my Iman   But instead of moving the files folders to a temporary directory then deleting the contents of the temporary folder  move the files to the trash       This is is a few lines of my backup batch file for example   SET FilesToClean1 C  Users pauls12 Temp SET FilesToClean2 C  Users pauls12 Desktop 1616 - Champlain Engineering CAD Backups  SET RecycleBin C   Recycle Bin S-1-5-21-1480896384-1411656790-2242726676-748474  robocopy   FilesToClean1     RecycleBin    mov  MINLAD 15  XA SH  NC  NDL  NJH  NS  NP  NJS robocopy   FilesToClean2     RecycleBin    mov  MINLAD 30  XA SH  NC  NDL  NJH  NS  NP  NJS   It cleans anything older than 15 days out of my  Temp  folder and 30 days for anything in my AutoCAD backup folder   I use variables because the line can get quite long and I can reuse them for other locations   You just need to find the dos path to your recycle bin associated with your login   This is on a work computer for me and it works   I understand that some of you may have more restrictive rights but give it a try anyway    Search Google for explanations on the ROBOCOPY parameters   Cheers

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More flexible way is to use FileTimeFilterJS bat   echo off                         set  quot  DIR C  Users npocmaka Downloads quot  set  quot  DAYS -5 quot                          for  f  quot tokens   delims  quot      in   FileTimeFilterJS bat   quot   DIR  quot  -dd   DAYS    do       echo deleting   quot    f  quot      echo del  q  f  quot    f  quot     The script will allow you to use measurements like days  minutes  seconds or hours  To choose weather to filter the files by time of creation  access or modification To list files before or after a certain date  or between two dates  To choose if to show files or dirs  or both  To be recursive or not

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Enjoy   forfiles -p  C  what ever  -s -m     -d  lt number of days gt  -c  cmd  c del  path    See forfiles documentation for more details   For more goodies  refer to An A-Z Index of the Windows nbsp XP command line   If you don t have forfiles installed on your machine  copy it from any Windows nbsp Server nbsp 2003 to your Windows nbsp XP machine at  WinDir  system32   This is possible since the EXE is fully compatible between Windows nbsp Server nbsp 2003 and Windows nbsp XP   Later versions of Windows and Windows nbsp Server have it installed by default   For Windows nbsp 7 and newer  including Windows nbsp 10    The syntax has changed a little  Therefore the updated command is   forfiles  p  C  what ever   s  m      D - lt number of days gt   C  cmd  c del  path

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Might I add a humble contribution to this already valuable thread   I m finding that other solutions might get rid of the actual error text but are ignoring the  ERRORLEVEL  which signals a fail in my application  AND I legitimately want  ERRORLEVEL  just as long as it isn t the  No files found  error   Some Examples   Debugging and eliminating the error specifically    forfiles  p   file path     IDOC ARCHIVE   s  m   txt  d -1  c  cmd  c del  path  2 gt  amp 1    findstr  V  O  C  ERROR  No files found with the specified search criteria  2 gt  amp 1   findstr ERROR amp  amp ECHO found error  echo found success   Using a oneliner to return ERRORLEVEL success or failure   forfiles  p   file path     IDOC ARCHIVE   s  m   txt  d -1  c  cmd  c del  path  2 gt  amp 1    findstr  V  O  C  ERROR  No files found with the specified search criteria  2 gt  amp 1   findstr ERROR amp  amp EXIT  B 1  EXIT  B 0   Using a oneliner to keep the ERRORLEVEL at zero for success within the context of a batchfile in the midst of other code  ver   nul resets the ERRORLEVEL    forfiles  p   file path     IDOC ARCHIVE   s  m   txt  d -1  c  cmd  c del  path  2 gt  amp 1    findstr  V  O  C  ERROR  No files found with the specified search criteria  2 gt  amp 1   findstr ERROR amp  amp ECHO found error  ver  gt  nul   For a SQL Server Agent CmdExec job step I landed on the following  I don t know if it s a bug  but the CmdExec within the step only recognizes the first line of code   cmd  e on  c  forfiles  p  C  SQLADMIN MAINTREPORTS SQL2   s  m   txt  d -1  c  cmd  c del  path  2 gt  amp 1    findstr  V  O  C  ERROR  No files found with the specified search criteria  2 gt  amp 1   findstr ERROR amp  amp EXIT 1  EXIT 0  amp exit  errorlevel

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Ok was bored a bit and came up with this  which contains my version of a poor man s Linux epoch replacement limited for daily usage  no time retention    7daysclean cmd   echo off setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION set day 86400 set  a year day 365 set  a strip day 7 set dSource C  temp  call  epoch  date  set  a slice epoch-strip  for  f  delims     f in   dir  a-d-h-s  b  s  dSource    do       call  epoch    tf     if  epoch  LEQ  slice   echo DELETE   f      tf    ELSE echo keep   f      tf     exit  b 0  rem Args 1   Year-Month-Day  epoch     setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION     for  f  tokens 1 2 3 delims -    d in   echo  1   do set Years   d amp  set Months   e amp  set Days   f     if   Months  0 1     0  set Months  Months  1 1      if   Days  0 1     0  set Days  Days  1 1      set  a Days Days day     set  a  months 0     set i 1 amp  amp  for   m in  31 28 31 30 31 30 31 31 30 31 30 31  do if  i  LSS  Months   set  a  months   months      m day amp  amp  set  a i  1      set  a Months   months      set  a Years  Years-1970  year     set  a Epoch Years Months Days     endlocal amp  set Epoch  Epoch      exit  b 0   USAGE  set  a strip day 7   Change 7 for the number of days to keep   set dSource C  temp   This is the starting directory to check for files   NOTES  This is non-destructive code  it will display what would have happened   Change    if  epoch  LEQ  slice   echo DELETE   f      tf    ELSE echo keep   f      tf     to something like    if  epoch  LEQ  slice  del  f   f   so files actually get deleted  February  is hard-coded to 28 days  Bissextile years is a hell to add  really  if someone has an idea that would not add 10 lines of code  go ahead and post so I add it to my code   epoch  I did not take time into consideration  as the need is to delete files older than a certain date  taking hours minutes would have deleted files from a day that was meant for keeping   LIMITATION  epoch takes for granted your short date format is YYYY-MM-DD   It would need to be adapted for other settings or a run-time evaluation  read sShortTime  user-bound configuration  configure proper field order in a filter and use the filter to extract the correct data from the argument    Did I mention I hate this editor s auto-formating  it removes the blank lines and the copy-paste is a hell   I hope this helps

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You might be able to pull this off  You can take a look at this question  for a simpler example  The complexity comes  when you start comparing the dates  It may be easy to tell if the date is greater or not  but there are many situations to consider if you need to actually get the difference between two dates   In other words - don t try to invent this  unless you really can t use the third party tools

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There are very often relative date time related questions to solve with batch file  But command line interpreter cmd exe has no function for date time calculations  Lots of good working solutions using additional console applications or scripts have been posted already here  on other pages of Stack Overflow and on other websites  Common for operations based on date time is the requirement to convert a date time string to seconds since a determined day  Very common is 1970-01-01 00 00 00 UTC  But any later day could be also used depending on the date range required to support for a specific task  Jay posted 7daysclean cmd containing a fast  quot date to seconds quot  solution for command line interpreter cmd exe  But it does not take leap years correct into account  J R  posted an add-on for taking leap day in current year into account  but ignoring the other leap years since base year  i e  since 1970  I use since 20 years static tables  arrays  created once with a small C function for quickly getting the number of days including leap days from 1970-01-01 in date time conversion functions in my applications written in C C    This very fast table method can be used also in batch code using FOR command  So I decided to code the batch subroutine GetSeconds which calculates the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00 00 00 UTC for a date time string passed to this routine  Note  Leap seconds are not taken into account as the Windows file systems also do not support leap seconds  First  the tables   Days since 1970-01-01 00 00 00 UTC for each year including leap days  1970 - 1979      0   365   730  1096  1461  1826  2191  2557  2922  3287 1980 - 1989   3652  4018  4383  4748  5113  5479  5844  6209  6574  6940 1990 - 1999   7305  7670  8035  8401  8766  9131  9496  9862 10227 10592 2000 - 2009  10957 11323 11688 12053 12418 12784 13149 13514 13879 14245 2010 - 2019  14610 14975 15340 15706 16071 16436 16801 17167 17532 17897 2020 - 2029  18262 18628 18993 19358 19723 20089 20454 20819 21184 21550 2030 - 2039  21915 22280 22645 23011 23376 23741 24106 24472 24837 25202 2040 - 2049  25567 25933 26298 26663 27028 27394 27759 28124 28489 28855 2050 - 2059  29220 29585 29950 30316 30681 31046 31411 31777 32142 32507 2060 - 2069  32872 33238 33603 33968 34333 34699 35064 35429 35794 36160 2070 - 2079  36525 36890 37255 37621 37986 38351 38716 39082 39447 39812 2080 - 2089  40177 40543 40908 41273 41638 42004 42369 42734 43099 43465 2090 - 2099  43830 44195 44560 44926 45291 45656 46021 46387 46752 47117 2100 - 2106  47482 47847 48212 48577 48942 49308 49673  Calculating the seconds for year 2039 to 2106 with epoch beginning 1970-01-01 is only possible with using an unsigned 32-bit variable  i e  unsigned long  or unsigned int  in C C    But cmd exe use for mathematical expressions a signed 32-bit variable  Therefore the maximum value is 2147483647  0x7FFFFFFF  which is 2038-01-19 03 14 07   Leap year information  No Yes  for the years 1970 to 2106  1970 - 1989  N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N 1990 - 2009  N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N 2010 - 2029  N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N 2030 - 2049  N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N 2050 - 2069  N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N 2070 - 2089  N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N 2090 - 2106  N N Y N N N Y N N N N N N N Y N N                                    year 2100   Number of days to first day of each month in current year                     Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year with 365 days   0  31  59  90 120 151 181 212 243 273 304 334 Year with 366 days   0  31  60  91 121 152 182 213 244 274 305 335    Converting a date to number of seconds since 1970-01-01 is quite easy using those tables  Attention please  The format of date and time strings depends on Windows region and language settings  The delimiters and the order of tokens assigned to the environment variables Day  Month and Year in first FOR loop of GetSeconds must be adapted to local date time format if necessary  It is necessary to adapt the date string of the environment variable if date format in environment variable DATE is different to date format used by command FOR on    tF  For example when  DATE  expands to Sun 02 08 2015 while    tF expands to 02 08 2015 07 38 PM the code below can be used with modifying line 4 to  call  GetSeconds  quot  DATE  4   TIME  quot   This results in passing to subroutine just 02 08 2015 - the date string without the 3 letters of weekday abbreviation and the separating space character  Alternatively following could be used to pass current date in correct format  call  GetSeconds  quot  DATE  -10   TIME  quot   Now the last 10 characters from date string are passed to function GetSeconds and therefore it does not matter if date string of environment variable DATE is with or without weekday as long as day and month are always with 2 digits in expected order  i e  in format dd mm yyyy  or dd mm yyyy  Here is the batch code with explaining comments which just outputs which file to delete and which file to keep in C  Temp folder tree  see code of first FOR loop   echo off setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion rem Get seconds since 1970-01-01 for current date and time  call  GetSeconds  quot  DATE   TIME  quot  rem Subtract seconds for 7 days from seconds value  set  A  quot LastWeek Seconds-7 86400 quot   rem For each file in each subdirectory of C  Temp get last modification date rem  without seconds - gt  append second 0  and determine the number of seconds rem since 1970-01-01 for this date time  The file can be deleted if seconds rem value is lower than the value calculated above   for  F  quot delims  quot      in   dir  A-D-H-S  B  S  quot C  Temp quot    do       call  GetSeconds  quot    t  0 quot      set  quot FullFileName     quot      setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion     rem if  Seconds  LSS  LastWeek  del  F  quot  FullFileName  quot      if  Seconds  LEQ  LastWeek            echo Delete  quot  FullFileName  quot        else           echo Keep    quot  FullFileName  quot            endlocal   endlocal goto  EOF   rem No validation is made for best performance  So make sure that date rem and hour in string is in a format supported by the code below like rem MM DD YYYY hh mm ss or M D YYYY h m s for English US date time    GetSeconds rem If there is  quot  AM quot  or  quot  PM quot  in time string because of using 12 hour rem time format  remove those 2 strings and in case of  quot  PM quot  remember rem that 12 hours must be added to the hour depending on hour value   set  quot DateTime   1 quot  set  quot Add12Hours 0 quot  if not  quot  DateTime  AM   quot      quot  DateTime  quot        set  quot DateTime  DateTime  AM   quot    else if not  quot  DateTime  PM   quot      quot  DateTime  quot        set  quot DateTime  DateTime  PM   quot      set  quot Add12Hours 1 quot     rem Get year  month  day  hour  minute and second from first parameter   for  F  quot tokens 1-6 delims  -     quot    A in   quot  DateTime  quot   do       rem For English US date MM DD YYYY or M D YYYY     set  quot Day   B quot   amp  set  quot Month   A quot   amp  set  quot Year   C quot      rem For German date DD MM YYYY or English UK date DD MM YYYY     rem set  quot Day   A quot   amp  set  quot Month   B quot   amp  set  quot Year   C quot      set  quot Hour   D quot   amp  set  quot Minute   E quot   amp  set  quot Second   F quot    rem echo Date time is   Year - Month - Day   Hour   Minute   Second   rem Remove leading zeros from the date time values or calculation could be wrong  if  quot  Month  0 1  quot       quot 0 quot  if not  quot  Month  1  quot       quot  quot  set  quot Month  Month  1  quot  if  quot  Day  0 1  quot         quot 0 quot  if not  quot  Day  1  quot         quot  quot  set  quot Day  Day  1  quot  if  quot  Hour  0 1  quot        quot 0 quot  if not  quot  Hour  1  quot        quot  quot  set  quot Hour  Hour  1  quot  if  quot  Minute  0 1  quot      quot 0 quot  if not  quot  Minute  1  quot      quot  quot  set  quot Minute  Minute  1  quot  if  quot  Second  0 1  quot      quot 0 quot  if not  quot  Second  1  quot      quot  quot  set  quot Second  Second  1  quot   rem Add 12 hours for time range 01 00 00 PM to 11 59 59 PM  rem but keep the hour as is for 12 00 00 PM to 12 59 59 PM  if  Add12Hours     1 if  Hour  LSS 12 set  A Hour  12  set  quot DateTime  quot  set  quot Add12Hours  quot   rem Must use two arrays as more than 31 tokens are not supported rem by command line interpreter cmd exe respectively command FOR  set  A  quot Index1 Year-1979 quot  set  A  quot Index2 Index1-30 quot   if  Index1  LEQ 30       rem Get number of days to year for the years 1980 to 2009      for  F  quot tokens  Index1  delims   quot    Y in   quot 3652 4018 4383 4748 5113 5479 5844 6209 6574 6940 7305 7670 8035 8401 8766 9131 9496 9862 10227 10592 10957 11323 11688 12053 12418 12784 13149 13514 13879 14245 quot   do set  quot Days   Y quot      for  F  quot tokens  Index1  delims   quot    L in   quot Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N quot   do set  quot LeapYear   L quot    else       rem Get number of days to year for the years 2010 to 2038      for  F  quot tokens  Index2  delims   quot    Y in   quot 14610 14975 15340 15706 16071 16436 16801 17167 17532 17897 18262 18628 18993 19358 19723 20089 20454 20819 21184 21550 21915 22280 22645 23011 23376 23741 24106 24472 24837 quot   do set  quot Days   Y quot      for  F  quot tokens  Index2  delims   quot    L in   quot N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N quot   do set  quot LeapYear   L quot     rem Add the days to month in year  if  quot  LeapYear  quot      quot N quot        for  F  quot tokens  Month  delims   quot    M in   quot 0 31 59 90 120 151 181 212 243 273 304 334 quot   do set  A  quot Days    M quot    else       for  F  quot tokens  Month  delims   quot    M in   quot 0 31 60 91 121 152 182 213 244 274 305 335 quot   do set  A  quot Days    M quot     rem Add the complete days in month of year  set  A  quot Days  Day-1 quot   rem Calculate the seconds which is easy now  set  A  quot Seconds Days 86400 Hour 3600 Minute 60 Second quot   rem Exit this subroutine  goto  EOF  For optimal performance it would be best to remove all comments  i e  all lines starting with rem after 0-4 leading spaces  And the arrays can be made also smaller  i e  decreasing the time range from 1980-01-01 00 00 00 to 2038-01-19 03 14 07 as currently supported by the batch code above for example to 2015-01-01 to 2019-12-31 as the code below uses which really deletes files older than 7 days in C  Temp folder tree  Further the batch code below is optimized for 24 hours time format   echo off setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion call  GetSeconds  quot  DATE  -10   TIME  quot  set  A  quot LastWeek Seconds-7 86400 quot   for  F  quot delims  quot      in   dir  A-D-H-S  B  S  quot C  Temp quot    do       call  GetSeconds  quot    t  0 quot      set  quot FullFileName     quot      setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion     if  Seconds  LSS  LastWeek  del  F  quot  FullFileName  quot      endlocal   endlocal goto  EOF   GetSeconds for  F  quot tokens 1-6 delims  -     quot    A in   quot   1 quot   do       set  quot Day   B quot   amp  set  quot Month   A quot   amp  set  quot Year   C quot      set  quot Hour   D quot   amp  set  quot Minute   E quot   amp  set  quot Second   F quot    if  quot  Month  0 1  quot       quot 0 quot  if not  quot  Month  1  quot       quot  quot  set  quot Month  Month  1  quot  if  quot  Day  0 1  quot         quot 0 quot  if not  quot  Day  1  quot         quot  quot  set  quot Day  Day  1  quot  if  quot  Hour  0 1  quot        quot 0 quot  if not  quot  Hour  1  quot        quot  quot  set  quot Hour  Hour  1  quot  if  quot  Minute  0 1  quot      quot 0 quot  if not  quot  Minute  1  quot      quot  quot  set  quot Minute  Minute  1  quot  if  quot  Second  0 1  quot      quot 0 quot  if not  quot  Second  1  quot      quot  quot  set  quot Second  Second  1  quot  set  A  quot Index Year-2014 quot  for  F  quot tokens  Index  delims   quot    Y in   quot 16436 16801 17167 17532 17897 quot   do set  quot Days   Y quot  for  F  quot tokens  Index  delims   quot    L in   quot N Y N N N quot   do set  quot LeapYear   L quot  if  quot  LeapYear  quot      quot N quot        for  F  quot tokens  Month  delims   quot    M in   quot 0 31 59 90 120 151 181 212 243 273 304 334 quot   do set  A  quot Days    M quot    else       for  F  quot tokens  Month  delims   quot    M in   quot 0 31 60 91 121 152 182 213 244 274 305 335 quot   do set  A  quot Days    M quot    set  A  quot Days  Day-1 quot  set  A  quot Seconds Days 86400 Hour 3600 Minute 60 Second quot  goto  EOF  For even more information about date and time formats and file time comparisons on Windows see my answer on Find out if file is older than 4 hours in batch file with lots of additional information about file times

User · Answer

Run the following commands   ROBOCOPY C  source C  destination  mov  minage 7 del C  destination  q   Move all the files  using  mov  which moves files and then deletes them as opposed to  move which moves whole filetrees which are then deleted  via robocopy to another location  and then execute a delete command on that path and you re all good     Also if you have a directory with lots of data in it you can use  mir switch

User · Answer

For windows 2012 R2 the following  would work       forfiles  p  c  FOLDERpath   d -30  c  cmd  c del  path    to see the files which will be deleted use this      forfiles  p  c  FOLDERpath   d -30  c  cmd  c echo  path  fdate

User · Answer

My command is  forfiles -p  d  logs  -s -m  log -d-15 -c cmd  c del  PATH  FILE      PATH - is just path in my case  so I had to use  PATH  FILE  also forfiles    not working for me too  but forfiles  without      worked fine   And the only question I have  how to add multiple mask  for example   log  bak     All this regarding forfiles exe that I downloaded here  on win XP   But if you are using Windows server forfiles exe should be already there and it is differs from ftp version  That is why I should modify command    For Windows Server 2003 I m using this command   forfiles -p  d  Backup  -s -m   log -d -15 -c  cmd  c del  PATH

User · Answer

For Windows Server 2008 R2   forfiles  P c  sql backups   S  M   sql  D -90  C  cmd  c del  PATH    This will delete all  sql files older than 90 days

User · Answer

If you have the XP resource kit  you can use robocopy to move all the old directories into a single directory  then use rmdir to delete just that one   mkdir c  temp OldDirectoriesGoHere robocopy c  logs SoManyDirectoriesToDelete  c  temp OldDirectoriesGoHere   move  minage 7 rmdir  s  q c  temp OldDirectoriesGoHere

User · Answer

Expanding on aku s answer  I see a lot of people asking about UNC paths  Simply mapping the unc path to a drive letter will make forfiles happy  Mapping and unmapping of drives can be done programmatically in a batch file  for example   net use Z   delete net use Z    unc path to my folder forfiles  p Z   s  m   gz  D -7  C  cmd  c del  path    This will delete all files with a  gz extension that are older than 7 days  If you want to make sure Z  isn t mapped to anything else before using it you could do something simple as  net use Z    unc path to my folder if  errorlevel  equ 0       forfiles  p Z   s  m   gz  D -7  C  cmd  c del  path    else       echo  Z  is already in use  please use another drive letter

[windows] Batch file to delete files older than N days

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