Command Syntax
find /path/to/files* -mtime +5 -exec rm {} \;
Note that there are spaces between rm, {}, and \;
This is a very simple tutorial how to find and delete files older than X days. I needed this for a project where i collected some images and after a while they took too much space.
With this you will be able with the Linux find command to find your JPG files older then 30 days and then execute rm command on them.
Delete command
find /path/to/files/ -type f -name '*.jpg' -mtime +30 -exec rm {} \;
Explanation
First part is the path where your files are located. Don’t use wildcard * if you have a lot of files because you will get Argument list too long error.
Second part -type is the file type f stands for files
Third part -name is limiting *,jpg files
Fourth part -mtime gets how many days the files older then will be listed. +30 is for files older then 30 days.
Fifth part -exec executes a command. In this case rm is the command, {} gets the filelist and \; closes the command
Move command
find /path/to/files/ -type f -name '*.jpg' -mtime +30 -exec mv {} /path/to/archive/ \;
Explanation
First part is the path where your files are located. Don’t use wildcard * if you have a lot of files because you will get Argument list too long error.
Second part -type is the file type f stands for files
Third part -name is limiting *,jpg files
Fourth part -mtime gets how many days the files older then will be listed. +30 is for files older then 30 days.
Fifth part -exec executes a command. In this case mv is the command, {} gets the filelist, path where to move the files and \; closes the command
Combine commands
Now we can combine this two command to archive the images older than 10 days and delete them from the archive folder if they are older then 30 days.
We are going to create a shell script that will do that and we can run it with a crontab.
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/find /path/to/files/ -type f -name '*.jpg' -mtime +10 -exec mv {} /path/to/archive/ \;
/usr/bin/find /path/to/archive/ -type f -name '*.jpg' -mtime +30 -exec rm {} \;
Sample Crontabs (gzip older than 30 days files and delete files older than 180 days)
0 1 * * * find /data1/airtel_scapp/transaction_log/ -mtime +30 -print -exec gzip {} \;
0 1 * * * find /data1/airtel_scapp/transaction_log/ -mtime +180 -exec rm {} \;
