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windowsbatch-filefor-loopcmd

Keep X amount of files in folder, forfiles

I would like to keep the X latest files from a folder and delete the rest. Is this possible with FORFILES? If it's not I can fallback to another solution I seen here. Thanks for help.

I did this but it takes by dates: EDIT

forfiles /p [path] /s /d -5 /c "cmd /c echo @file"

(echo file for testing purpose)

Solution 
  • @ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
SET "targetdir=U:\destdir"
SET /a retain=10

FOR /f "skip=%retain%delims=" %%a IN (
 'dir /b /a-d /o-d "%targetdir%\*" '
 ) DO ECHO (DEL "%targetdir%\%%a"

GOTO :EOF

    You would need to change the setting of targetdir to suit your circumstances. Equally, this procedure targets all files - change the filemask to suit.

    The required DEL commands are merely ECHOed for testing purposes. After you've verified that the commands are correct, change ECHO(DEL to DEL to actually delete the files.

    method is to simply execute a dir in basic form without directories, sorted in reverse-date order.

    Skip the first 10 entries, and delete the rest.