Delete folders having particular naming pattern in a path in windows

Question

I have a directory that contains .exe executable and required input files. For each individual request, a separate directory (of the format Output_) is created in the same path and the respective output files are directed there.

Now i am in need of purging the older output directories. Can somebody explain how to achieve this in windows. I went through the forfiles documentation and other stack overflow answers but did not find any information on providing name pattern for folders that need to be deleted although this option is available for file deletion.

I am trying the below code. But i want to specify the folder pattern as well so that i do not delete other files.

forfiles /p "C:\work\Analysis\" /d +7 /c "cmd /c IF @isdir == TRUE rd /S /Q @path"

Please [edit your question](https://stackoverflow.com/posts/47388853/edit) and post what did you tried as code until now ! — Hackoo, Nov 20 '17 at 09:39
this might be helpful in your question: [how to add date created to folder sort option](https://superuser.com/questions/434577/how-do-i-add-the-date-created-sort-by-option-to-the-shell-in-windows-7) — Oleg Alexandrov, Nov 20 '17 at 09:40
Possible duplicate: [How to remotely delete subfolders older than x days using forfiles](https://stackoverflow.com/q/33537632) — aschipfl, Nov 20 '17 at 09:42

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 20 '17 at 09:42

0

Here an example in Powershell

$Now = Get-Date
$Hours = "4"
$TargetFolder = **!Folder in which old data exists!**
$LastWrite = $Now.AddHours(-$Hours)

$Folders = get-childitem -path $TargetFolder | 
Where {$_.psIsContainer -eq $true} | 
Where {$_.LastWriteTime -le "$LastWrite"} 

 foreach ($Folder in $Folders)
    {
    write-host "Deleting $Folder" -foregroundcolor "Red"
    Remove-Item $TARGETFOLDER\$Folder -recurse -Force
    }

answered Nov 20 '17 at 09:42

Herm L

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1
8

@All: My challenge is to delete folder having names of particular pattern. I do not want to touch any other file/ folders in the same path. For example, as seen in the screenshot, i need to delete only guid_* folders and nothing else. – AsteriK Nov 20 '17 at 13:03

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 20 '17 at 18:51

0

Below command did the job for me. /M works with directories as well. Thanks to JJS's answer on https://superuser.com/q/764348

forfiles /P C:\work\Analysis\ /M guid_* /d +5 /C "cmd /c if @isdir==TRUE rmdir /s /q @file"

answered Nov 20 '17 at 18:51

AsteriK

39
1
9

Delete folders having particular naming pattern in a path in windows

2 Answers2