This is a very simple Python script which searches a directory, optionally including a file pattern, and deletes the oldest files.

I hear a lot about Python - it seems to be very popular - so when I needed to automatically delete some old backup files I thought I’d have a go at using it.

This code is very simple: its searches a file path, looks at the last modification time of the files, sorts them accordingly and then deletes all but the newest ones. The file path can also include a file pattern, e.g. fpath='/Users/fred/backup/*.tar' or fpath='C:\\\\BACKUP\\\\db*.zip'

The os.stat() method gives us information about a file. Loop over the files and for each one get the modification time and sort it in a map.

fileData = {}
for fname in fileDir:
    fileData[fname] = os.stat(fname).st_mtime

Sort this new map according to the modification time we stored.

sortedFiles = sorted(fileData.items(), key=itemgetter(1))

Then loop over the files and remove each one, stopping keep places before the end.

delete = len(sortedFiles) - keep
for x in range(0, delete):
    os.remove(sortedFiles[x][0]

I use a .sh or .bat file to run this with either a cron job or a scheduled task.

I’ve put the full file in a repository on Github: http://github.com/grahamlyons/delete-old-files