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remove files and directories with acces time older than a given date

Terminal - remove files and directories with acces time older than a given date
find <dir> -printf '%p : %A@\n' | awk '{FS=" : " ; if($2 < <time in epoc> ) print $1 ;}' | xargs rm --verbose -fr ;
2009-11-20 16:31:58
User: angleto
Functions: awk find rm xargs
-2
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remove files and directories with acces time older than a given date

remove files with access time older than a given date.

If you want to remove files with a given modification time replace %A@ with %T@. Use %C@ for the modification time.

The time is expressed in epoc but is easy to use any other ordered format.

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Alternatives

There is 1 alternative - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
touch -t "YYYYMMDDhhmm.ss" ~/.ts ; find . -newer ~/.ts
2010-10-26 19:45:32
User: poffey21
Functions: find touch
4
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Lists all files and directories with modified time newer than a given date

This is great for looking for files that have been updated recently. Logs especially or monitoring what files were added during an install.

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touch -t "YYYYMMDDhhmm.ss" dummy ; find . -anewer dummy
2009-11-21 04:05:45
User: unixmonkey7109
Functions: find touch
2
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remove files and directories with acces time older than a given date

touch a dummy file with the specified date, then use find with -anewer .

Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
find -amin +[n] -delete
2009-11-20 17:15:28
User: TeacherTiger
Functions: find
-2
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remove files and directories with acces time older than a given time

Deletes files older than "n" minutes ago. Note the plus sign before the n is important and means "greater than n". This is more precise than atime, since atime is specified in units of days. NOTE that you can use amin/atime, mmin/mtime, and cmin/ctime for access, modification, and change times, respectively. Also, using -delete is faster than piping to xargs, since no piping is needed.

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Know a better way?

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What others think

find -atime -delete

Comment by TeacherTiger 182 weeks and 6 days ago

@TeacherTiger

is not the same, atime allow to specify a delta expressed in days

The command I wrote allow to specify an exact date and time.

Comment by angleto 182 weeks and 6 days ago

Then you can use "find -amin -n -delete", where n is the number of minutes in the past that the file was accessed. Note the minus sign before n is important (meaning "for less than n"). It's still not down to the second level, but usually you don't care about that, and this is *much* shorter and simpler.

Comment by TeacherTiger 182 weeks and 6 days ago

again, the options -amin, -atime, -mtime, -mmin ... etc. allows only to specify a delta, you can ever calculate the delta, but with the command I wrote you don't need to do it.

For instance, if you want delete the files with access time older than 2009 10 21, you don't need to calculate how much is the delta between the access time of the files and the time of command execution.

Comment by angleto 182 weeks and 6 days ago

Hi angleto,

I think your command is exactly whar I have been looking for. But unfortunately it is giving me an error on AIX find: 0652-017 -printf is not a valid option. Any suggestion?

Thanks

Comment by rubenryhan 174 weeks and 2 days ago

Hi rubenryhan,

try to replace:

find -printf '%p : %A@\n' | ...

with:

find | xargs stat -c '%n : %Y' | ...

Comment by angleto 173 weeks ago

Your point of view

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