How do you delete files older than specific date in Linux?

Question

I used the below command to delete files older than a year.

  find /path/* -mtime +365 -exec rm -rf {} \;

But now I want to delete all files whose modified time is older than 01 Jan 2014. How do I do this in Linux?

Hijoung

Answer 1

You can touch your timestamp as a file and use that as a reference point:

e.g. for 01-Jan-2014:

touch -t 201401010000 /tmp/2014-Jan-01-0000

find /path -type f ! -newer /tmp/2014-Jan-01-0000 | xargs rm -rf 

this works because find has a -newer switch that we're using.

From man find:

-newer file
       File  was  modified  more  recently than file.  If file is a symbolic
       link and the -H option or the -L option is in effect, the modification time of the 
       file it points to is always used.

Tithonus

Thank you. ! is as good as -not "find . -not -newer /tmp/2014-Jan-01-0000 " – Hijoung

this is polluting the file system. -newer(a/b/c/m/t) timestamp can do it efficiently. please update your answer – Methoxychlor

@Methoxychlor Or just delete the file when you're done. It's literally in the "temporary files" directory – Defend

Answer 2

This works for me:

find /path ! -newermt "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS" | xargs rm -rf

Isolative

this is very nice, I don't pollute filesystem with temp timestamp file! – Lithology

For just files find /path ! -type f -newermt "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS" -delete. It saves you from having to pipe everything through xargs, and having to handle filesnames with spaces or other disruptive characters. – Sidesman

For what it's worth, -newermt is a non-standard extension, though on Linux systems you will typically have GNU find. This is not portable to other platforms. – Conni

Adding -delete argument to the find command also works. – Deciliter

Careful with @Sidesman 's command as that will delete everything that isn't a file, the ! needs to be moved to the other side of -type f – Thermion

You can use date --date="today" "+%Y-%m-%d" to get files older than today. Something like --date="last friday" works too! find /path ! -newermt "`date --date="today" "+%Y-%m-%d"`" | xargs rm -rf – Canzonet

Corrected command find /path -type f ! -newermt "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS" -delete thanks @Thermion – Sidesman

damn, i should have read Shardj's comment... all folders gone... :D – Bridgers

Answer 3

This other answer pollutes the file system and find itself offers a "delete" option. So, we don't have to pipe the results to xargs and then issue an rm.

This answer is more efficient:

find /path -type f -not -newermt "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MI:SS" -delete

Methoxychlor

The data fmt is wrong: use find /path -type f -not -newermt "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MI:SS" -delete – Rugged

This seems to repeat an older answer from 2017, though the -delete option is an improvement. – Conni

Answer 4

find ~ -type f ! -atime 4|xargs ls -lrt

This will list files accessed older than 4 days, searching from home directory.

Stripy

Actually ! -atime 4 means "do not match any files accessed exactly 4 days ago". You'd need to use -atime +4 for "match file accessed more than 4 days ago". The full command would be find ~ -type f -atime +4 | xargs ls -lrt – Garik

Answer 5

First I execute this

touch -t 202310080000 /tmp/olddate ---> this creates a file with the specified date

find "path to which you want to apply search" -type f ! -newer /tmp/olddate -delete -----> this deletes files from the path where you want with reference to the file created at the certain date.

Abigailabigale