Remove-Item throws File not found

Question

I am new to power shell script. I need a Power shell script to Check the available disk space and delete some old subfolders from a folder until the free space reaches threshold level.

Within "D:\InstallApp\Backup" this path I have multiple folders each with date as folder name. I have to delete some of the old dated back up folder to let the free space reach the threshold level.Thanks in Advance :)

$driveLetter = "D"
$directory = "D:\InstallApp\Backup"
$desiredGiB = 266

$desiredBytes = $desiredGiB * 1073741824
Get-PSDrive $driveLetter | ForEach-Object { $free = $_.Free }
$list = $(Get-ChildItem $directory -File | Sort-Object -Property LastWriteTime)

#Write-Output $list 

if ($free -lt $desiredBytes) {
    $toDelete = @()
    $needed = $desiredBytes - $free
    $spaceToFree = 0
    
    foreach ($item in $list) {
        $toDelete += $item
        #write-Output $toDelete 
        $spaceToFree += $item.Length
        #write-Output $spaceToFree 
        if ($spaceToFree -ge $needed) {
            break
        }
    }
    
    $toDelete | ForEach-Object {
        ## Remove -WhatIf when you are comfortable that this is working as intended
        Remove-Item $toDelete 
    }
}

All the steps works fine except the deleting step. Remove-Item throws file not found exception

Answer 1

Remove-Item expects strings for the -Path (check out Remove-Item -?), so the file items are converted to strings, which will be the file names only, not full paths.

Use

$toDelete | foreach { Remove-Item $_.FullName }

or better

$toDelete | Remove-Item