Delete Directory Based on Created Date regardless of Content

Question

I have a directory, which consist of many sub-directories. Ex: "\IP\Share\Directory\Machine\Year\Month\Date\Image_ID"

The problem is that this directory stores images and I need to delete any images stored that are older than 730 Days. The issue is that there are hundreds of images on the "Image_ID" folder. Some times you can have up to 100 "Image_ID" folders created as well. I need to make a PowerShell script that will search for the directory create date, sort, and remove the directory closet to the "IP address" that was created older than 730 Days (Not the images/files because this process can take a whole day).

This is a daily task and I need to minimize the duration of the task. So I figured searching for the directory date, instead of the file date.

This is the script that I am using, which works for me. But its taking extremely long to complete, it runs the same delete line multiple times simply to delete sub-directories folders:

Param (
    [string]$Source = "\IP\Share\Directory\Machine\Year\Month\Date\Image ID",
    [string]$Days = "730"
)


$Folder = Get-ChildItem $Source -Recurse | Where-Object { !$_.PSIsContainer -and $_.LastWriteTime -le (get-date).adddays(-$($Days)) }

$Folder | Remove-Item -Force

$Folder = Get-ChildItem $source -Recurse -Force | Where {$_.PSIsContainer} | Sort-Object FullName -Descending | Where {!(Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Force)}

$Folder | Remove-Item -Force

$Folder = Get-ChildItem $source -Recurse -Force | Where {$_.PSIsContainer} | Sort-Object FullName -Descending | Where {!(Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Force)}

$Folder | Remove-Item -Force

$Folder = Get-ChildItem $source -Recurse -Force | Where {$_.PSIsContainer} | Sort-Object FullName -Descending | Where {!(Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Force)}

$Folder | Remove-Item -Force

$Folder = Get-ChildItem $source -Recurse -Force | Where {$_.PSIsContainer} | Sort-Object FullName -Descending | Where {!(Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Force)}

$Folder | Remove-Item -Force

stop-process -Id $PID
}

If I didn't explain something correctly I will try and clarify. I am new to PowerShell and this script was a combination of multiple ones that I made work.

I'm not sure I follow. You appear to repeat the same lump of code a number of times! — gvee

wOxxOm wOxxOm · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-20T14:03:40

The obvious problems with your code:

Multiple enumeration of the slow network path
Get-ChildItem produces objects for each file that gets discarded in the next Where because you didn't specify -Directory parameter available since PowerShell 3.0
There's also the known problem with Get-ChildItem being slow on network paths.

A more efficient approach is to use the IO.DirectoryInfo.GetDirectories so the entire code will be:

$DateCutOff = (Get-Date).AddDays(-$Days)
([IO.DirectoryInfo]$Source).GetDirectories('*', [IO.SearchOption]::AllDirectories) |
    Where { $_.LastWriteTime -le $DateCutOff } |
    ForEach { $_.Delete($true) } # recursively delete all subdirectories

Test this code with $_.FullName in the ForEach block in order to see the list first and check if it's OK.

P.S. In .NET 4 and newer IO.DirectoryInfo.EnumerateDirectories is an even better choice.

Delete Directory Based on Created Date regardless of Content

1 Answers