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Delete Files Older Than x Days on Linux

The find utility on linux allows you to pass in a bunch of interesting arguments, including one to execute another command on each file. We’ll use this in order to figure out what files are older than a certain number of days, and then use the rm command to delete them.

Command Syntax

  find /path/to/files* -mtime +5 -exec rm {} \;

Note that there are spaces between rm, {}, and \;

Explanation

• The first argument is the path to the files. This can be a path, a directory, or a wildcard as in the example above. I would recommend using the full path, and make sure that you run the command without the exec rm to make sure you are getting the right results.
• The second argument, -mtime, is used to specify the number of days old that the file is. If you enter +5, it will find files older than 5 days.
• The third argument, -exec, allows you to pass in a command such as rm. The {} \; at the end is required to end the command.