Move Files older then 31 days to another drive

Question

Function Move {
  #Moves all files older than 31 days old from the Source folder to the Target 
  Get-Childitem -Path "E:\source" | Where-Object { $_.LastWriteTime -lt (get-date).AddDays(-31)} |
  ForEach {
    Move-Item $_.FullName -destination "F:\target" -force -ErrorAction:SilentlyContinue
  }
}

in the source directory are files that are older than 2-3 years, but when i run the script nothing moves to the target directory ?! whats wrong ?

Are your files in `E:\source` exactly or in its subdirectories? In the latter case use `Get-Childitem -Recurse` — Roman Kuzmin, May 06 '11 at 15:54
I suggest using in a script the robocopy command with /mov and /minage: flags. — CB., May 06 '11 at 16:50

Matthew Steeples · Answer 1 · 2011-05-07T16:19:20.577

33

I don't know if this makes much of a difference, but rather than $. it needs to be $_.

I tried this script and it works fine for me:

get-childitem -Path "E:\source" |
    where-object {$_.LastWriteTime -lt (get-date).AddDays(-31)} | 
    move-item -destination "F:\target"

Notice you don't need a foreach loop because the objects will be "piped" into the move-item command

edited May 07 '11 at 16:19

answered May 06 '11 at 13:27

Matthew Steeples

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get-currentitem you mean Get-Childitem ? – JPBlanc May 06 '11 at 14:39
why does it not work for me...very strange. i thought about the foreach to avoid problems, cause we have 20k+ files in some directorys.... – Maurizio Schmidt May 06 '11 at 15:13
@JPBlanc: Thanks very much, yes I do mean get-childitem. I'm used to writing gci. Have updated my post – Matthew Steeples May 07 '11 at 16:19
1

@Maurizio Schmidt: If you have files in subfolders this won't do it. You'll have to use the -Recurse flag on get-childitem, and additionally you'll have to work out how to move to the right folder on the destinations – Matthew Steeples May 07 '11 at 16:21
@ Matthew: Now it works perfectly, thx. i thought the foreach etc is necessary to avoid memory consumption problems caused by the fact that within some directorys we´ve more then 30.000 files. – Maurizio Schmidt May 09 '11 at 09:43
@Maurizio Schmidt: I don't know what the limits will be for memory, but if you've got too many files then I think you'll encounter the problem on the get-childitem method (as that will load them all up to begin with). – Matthew Steeples May 10 '11 at 15:51

score 4 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 14 '16 at 21:37

4

Also be aware of hidden files, try adding -Force to Get-ChildItem

edited Nov 14 '16 at 21:37

S.Spieker

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answered Jun 06 '12 at 14:17

Matias

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Move Files older then 31 days to another drive

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