How would I write a cmd file that would delete folders that are greater than one day old?

dragon-it:

Copied your code into a cmd file (retyped  "   and  '  ) and ran it. Flashes on the screen and nothing happens. Any suggestions?

BTW-  I also backup in 2 other locations every night. So removing everything > 1 day old still leaves me with other backups.

Thanks

I would put a

pause

at the end so when your script runs, it will stop at the end where presumeably is an error, it iwll stop and ask you to press any key to continue and close the window.  Since you can't read at super human speeds, it looks like a flash to you.

Myself, I would use robocopy in this manner:

mkdir c:\delete
c:\robocopy.exe c:\Source c:\Delete /e /MOVE /MINAGE:14 /LOG+:c:\robocopy.log
rmdir c:\delete /s /q

where the new folder created is a "staging" area for my soon to be delted folder.
then source is where I want to delete from, the switch "e" is for all folders, even empty ones, the move command moves the items older than 14 days, and write to a log on the root of c for all files processed.

the last step is to delete the "staging folder"

Break this up a little before you put in the last step of remove directory, just so that it can be applied in the manner you want it to.

tsaico:

I am an MS DOS novice. How would I create a pause at the end of the script?

oh sorry,

hit return to go to new line, then type "pause" no quotes.

So in my example, open Notepad, past this in

mkdir c:\delete
c:\robocopy.exe c:\Source c:\Delete /e /MOVE /MINAGE:14 /LOG+:c:\robocopy.log
rmdir c:\delete /s /q
pause

and save it as a .bat file instead.  Double click that new bat file and it should give you some error most likely to do with there is no directory called source on your root of c, and then it will just wait for you to push enter.  After you have done your tests, then remove the pause before you schedule it so it can run on its own.  Then you can just check the autoschedule to see if the job ran, and if so, did it run into problems.

tsaico:
Thanks. For code provided by dragon-t -  I see a list of the files that should be deleted and then "press any key to continue"  I press any key and screen disappears and nothing is deleted.

I will try your code next.

The Backups are on the external F: not C:

How would I change your code so it will run on the F drive?  Thanks

dragon-it:
Your code is outputting the names of the files that should be deleted but is not deleting them. Any ideas?

Thanks

dragon-it:  FORGOT TO MENTION THAT WHEN I DELETED "ECHO" BEFORE "RD" I GET A MESSAGE THAT CAN NOT FIND FILE SPECIFIED. SO WITH "ECHO" ACTS AS EXPECTED. HOWEVER, WITHOUT ECHO = UNEXPECTED OUTPUT.
Thanks

Excellent! That fixed the issue. Now it works.

Thanks again.

No problem, had assumed dir names without spaces from your original example and quickly answering while passing PC inbetween nappies etc!