How to remove only files created before a specific date and time
l would like to remove from my directory files which have been created before 04/29/2018 at 4:00 pm.
Thank you
1 Answer
Linux doesn't keep record of creation time, there are only 3 time records for files: last access, last modification of contents and last modification of the inode. So you are left with 3 options:
To delete all files modified before 04/29/2018 at 4:00 pm:
find . -type f ! -newermt '04/29/2018 16:00:00' -exec rm -f {} \;To delete all files accessed before 04/29/2018 at 4:00 pm:
find . -type f ! -newerat '04/29/2018 16:00:00' -exec rm -f {} \;To delete all files which had their permission changed before 04/29/2018 at 4:00 pm:
find . -type f ! -newerct '04/29/2018 16:00:00' -exec rm -f {} \;You probably wouldn't want to run the above commands as root, and remember to backup any important files.
Important note!
You should treat date values with caution. Even though I did a complete format to my hard drive last month, I have some files in my home directory dating back to 2014!
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