Windows – Batch file to delete files older than N days

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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.

Best Answer

Enjoy:

forfiles -p "C:\what\ever" -s -m *.* -d <number of days> -c "cmd /c del @path"

See forfiles documentation for more details.

For more goodies, refer to An A-Z Index of the Windows XP command line.

If you don't have forfiles installed on your machine, copy it from any Windows Server 2003 to your Windows XP machine at %WinDir%\system32\. This is possible since the EXE is fully compatible between Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.

Later versions of Windows and Windows Server have it installed by default.

For Windows 7 and newer (including Windows 10):

The syntax has changed a little. Therefore the updated command is:

forfiles /p "C:\what\ever" /s /m *.* /D -<number of days> /C "cmd /c del @path"

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How to pass arguments to a batch file

Another useful tip is to use %* to mean "all". For example:

echo off
set arg1=%1
set arg2=%2
shift
shift
fake-command /u %arg1% /p %arg2% %*

When you run:

test-command admin password foo bar

the above batch file will run:

fake-command /u admin /p password admin password foo bar

I may have the syntax slightly wrong, but this is the general idea.

Split long commands in multiple lines through Windows batch file

You can break up long lines with the caret ^ as long as you remember that the caret and the newline following it are completely removed. So, if there should be a space where you're breaking the line, include a space. (More on that below.)

Example:

copy file1.txt file2.txt

would be written as:

copy file1.txt^
 file2.txt

Best Answer

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How to pass arguments to a batch file

Split long commands in multiple lines through Windows batch file

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