Delete files older than a specific time

[semsaudade]

Is it possible to create a macro to delete all files older than one week (for example) in a given folder? Thank you!

 

[Jacob L]

Needs two variables:
All
Current

In shell script action:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions...files-that-are-more-than-a-week-old-in-linux#
find /path/to/files* -mtime +7

Tick save to a variable: All https://stackoverflow.com/questions...-files-that-are-more-than-a-week-old-in-linux

See if this uses commas to separate the folders and files by commas by adding this to the end of the command:

| tr '\n' ','
This is called piping.

Use text manipulation action to replace comma with \n on the All variable

and use text manipulation action to extract text with ^+ from All to Current

Then use replace all in text manipulation action to replace All variable with Current

Then trim whitespace for all variables with text manipulation and use the Current variable in the command:

rm -r Current

Use the three dots menu to select your variable

DO A TRST FOLDER/FILES FIRST AND TAKE BACKUPS

 

[semsaudade]

Thanks so much for your kind answer! But it is way too complicated for me. Sorry, it doesn't matter

 

[Jacob L]

Thanks so much for your kind answer! But it is way too complicated for me. Sorry, it doesn't matter

I'll build and test it. It will take me a bit of time though.

 

[semsaudade]

I'll build and test it. It will take me a bit of time though.

No problem, really. Thank you for your kind help

 

[Jacob L]

Please test this macro. Every device is different and will respond in different ways. Take a backup before running the macro to prevent accidental data loss. You can change the path variable to change the path which is being checked for old files. You can test if you want by turning off automatic date and time in the settings and change the date to something more than a week ago, create some files and then use auto date and time to put you back to the current time, which then makes the files older than a week.

http://www.macrodroid.com/macrostore?id=10020

If the link fails, head to the store and search id=10020

 

[semsaudade]

Thanks but the link doesn't work and there is no macro store (or I can't access it)

 

[Jacob L]

What version of MacroDroid have you got? I think only users who have upgraded can use the store

Store appears at the bottom of the MacroDroid app. The attachment will import as a macro for MacroDroid.

 

[semsaudade]

Thanks a lot! I upgraded macrodroid, downloaded your macro and changed the variable path to /storage/emulated/0/WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Images/
But I got the message "no such directory".
So sorry

 

[tanutanu]

If your target path contains white space, quote like "WhatsApp Images" or escape like WhatsApp\ Images.

Try one of below commands in shell script action. It's much simpler.
find /storage/emulated/0/WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp\ Images/ -mtime +7 -delete
find /storage/emulated/0/WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp\ Images/ -mtime +7 | xargs rm -f

 

[Jacob L]

Should be able to put quotes round the whole path "/storage/emulated/0/WhatsApp Images"

 

[semsaudade]

Great! Now it is working! Thanks so much!

 

[tanutanu]

In this case, whole and a part quoting are the same thing. Normally, a white space is recognized by shell itself as a delimiter of arguments. So you have to quote or escape at least the single space in your path.
In another case, with meta characters,
A: find "~/path/as/you/like/with space"
B: find ~/path/as/you/like/"with space"
A and B is completely different. So I recommend you quote as short as possible basically. UNIX shell is different than DOS cmd.

 

[Dm114]

In this case, whole and a part quoting are the same thing. Normally, a white space is recognized by shell itself as a delimiter of arguments. So you have to quote or escape at least the single space in your path.
In another case, with meta characters,
A: find "~/path/as/you/like/with space"
B: find ~/path/as/you/like/"with space"
A and B is completely different. So I recommend you quote as short as possible basically. UNIX shell is different than DOS cmd.

What would be the difference between A and B syntax?

 

[tanutanu]

What would be the difference between A and B syntax?

Don't tell me before you try, please Its easy to understand if you have enough experience to use UNIX like OS.
On Android device, you can access to toybox mksh via any terminal emulators if not.

 

[cc2lee]

It doesn't seem to work on Galaxy S23 Ultra - nothing happens!

 

[Dimlos]

Shell script to delete the latest screenshot.
Confirmed to work on Galaxy S23.