Delete every week all files except some folders (but not the files into these)

Question

I'm using this bash script to delete all files and folders located in a directory every week except three folders and the files contained into these. But how can I now modify the script so that only these three foldres remain but not the files contained? These 3 folders are necessary to a workflow but not the files contained (after 7 days).

find /Path/Folder/* -type d -mtime +7 ! -path "/Path/Folder/NODELETE1"  ! -path "/Path/Folder/NODELETE2"  ! -path "/Path/Folder/NODELETE3" -exec rm -rf {} \;

What I want is

Before

Path/NODELETE1/files
Path/NODELETE2/files
Path/NODELETE3/files
Path/FOLDERS
Path/files

After

Path/NODELETE1
Path/NODELETE2
Path/NODELETE3

EDIT:

find /path/Folder/* -and -not -path "/path/Folder/DELEGATE*" -mtime +7 ! -regextype posix-egrep ! -regex ".*/path/Folder/(DOCUMENTS|WORK|PENDING)$" -delete

Answer 1

well, first of all you don't need anymore the -type d if you want to delete files. you can use regex with find to deal with this case; a regex that matches everything that doesn't end with NODELETE[1-3]:

find path/folder/* -regextype posix-egrep ! -regex ".*path/folder/NODELETE[1-3]$"

this will match, for example:

$ find path/folder/* -regextype posix-egrep ! -regex ".*path/folder/NODELETE[1-3]$"
path/folder/asd
path/folder/asd/will_delete
path/folder/bleeegh
path/folder/NODELETE1/eraseme
path/folder/NODELETE2/a_folder
path/folder/NODELETE2/a_folder/delete_me

also, instead of -exec rm -rf {} you can use -delete:

$ find path/folder/* -regextype posix-egrep ! -regex ".*path/folder/NODELETE[1-3]$" -delete
$ tree
.
└── path
    └── folder
        ├── NODELETE1
        ├── NODELETE2
        └── NODELETE3

5 directories, 0 files

so, the folders remain, other folder and files are gone, and the files and folders inside NODELETE[1-3] are also gone.

don't forget to add -mtime +7! (i obviated it because it's not necessary to demonstrate the case)

---

if you want to keep other folders you can use an OR in the regex which won't delete the folders but will delete files inside them:

find path/folder/* -regextype posix-egrep ! -regex ".*path/folder/(NODELETE[1-3]|DOCUMENTS|WORK|DELEGATE)$" -delete

---

and if you want to keep the files of some folder you can specify another filter for find:

find [...] -and -not -path "path/folder/DOCUMENTS*"

notice that the * at the end will match not only the folder itself but all files inside it.