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Simon
Asked: 2024-09-22 17:02:05 +0800 CST

Remove old files in subfolders and subfolders

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I have an ip cam that records videos in a folder structure like this:

├── 2023
│   ├── 10
│   ├── 11
│   │   ├── cam_00_20240921153706.mp4
│   │   ├── cam_00_20240921153928.mp4
│   │   ├── cam_00_20240921164743.mp4
│   │   └── cam_00_20240921230558.mp4
│   └── 12
└── 2024
    ├── 08
    └── 09
        ├── 21
        │   ├── cam_00_20240921153706.mp4
        │   ├── cam_00_20240921153928.mp4
        │   ├── cam_00_20240921164743.mp4
        │   ├── cam_00_20240921230558.mp4
        │   └── cam_00_20240921230646.mp4
        └── 22
            ├── cam_00_20240922101839.mp4
            └── cam_00_20240922102150.mp4

Now I would like to delete all files that are older than 2 days, and all empty folders. To do this, I did

#delete files older than 2 days
find /recordings/????/??/?? -depth -type d -mtime +2 -exec rm -rf {} \;
#delete empty month dir
find /recordings/????/?? -depth -empty -type d -mtime +2 -exec rm -rf {} \;
#delete empty year dir
find /recordings/???? -depth -empty -type d -mtime +2 -exec rm -rf {} \;

Can this be done with a one liner? Or in a nicer way?

linux

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    find has a -o (or) parameter, that allows combining two commands:

    find /recordings/ -type f -mtime +2 -exec rm -f {} \; -o -type d -empty -exec rmdir {} \;

    Explanation:

    1. find /recordings/ - Search recursively starting from the /recordings/ directory.
    2. -type f -mtime +2 -exec rm -f {} \; - Find files older than 2 days and delete them.
    3. -o - OR operator to combine different find expressions.
    4. -type d -empty -exec rmdir {} \; - Find empty directories and remove them.
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