Python Delete old files

Many a times, we come across deleting old files like logs, deprecated files from file system

We come across scenarios like 

To delete logs older than x days

To delete txt files older than x days

Let us discuss how we can achieve deleting old files using python script

What does the script do?

It will take the path from where you need to delete the txt files

The below program checks the time stamp of the files and deletes the txt files older than 7 days.

You can change the file extension, folder path and use it.

folder_path = "C:\Files_To_Read"

file_ends_with = ".txt"

how_many_days_old_logs_to_remove = 7

How to call the script?

python delete_old_logs.py

delete_old_logs.py

import os, time, sys

folder_path = "C:\Files_To_Read"
file_ends_with = ".txt"
how_many_days_old_logs_to_remove = 7

now = time.time()
only_files = []

for file in os.listdir(folder_path):
    file_full_path = os.path.join(folder_path,file)
    if os.path.isfile(file_full_path) and file.endswith(file_ends_with):
        #Delete files older than x days
        if os.stat(file_full_path).st_mtime < now - how_many_days_old_logs_to_remove * 86400: 
             os.remove(file_full_path)
             print "\n File Removed : " , file_full_path