Keep x number of files and delete all others - Powershell

Question

I am trying to write a script that will look through a set of folders and keep only the last 10 files. The files in each folder could be created daily, weekly or monthly. I

Answer 1

How to call this GCI command in SQL server , was trying below code but returning error

declare @deleteoldtempxe nvarchar(1000)
        set @deleteoldtempxe='powershell.exe gci '+''''+ 'I:\New folder\'+''''+' -Recurse| where{-not $_.PsIsContainer}| sort CreationTime -desc| 
    select -Skip 1| Remove-Item -Force'
    select @deleteoldtempxe

EXEC master.dbo.xp_cmdshell @deleteoldtempxe

Answer 2

You can sort by CreationTime descending and skip the first 10. If there are less than 10 files it will not remove any.

gci C:\temp\ -Recurse| where{-not $_.PsIsContainer}| sort CreationTime -desc| 
    select -Skip 10| Remove-Item -Force

Answer 3

Updated

$path = "C:\TestDir"

# Create 12 test files, 1 second after each other
1..12 | % {
    Remove-Item -Path "$path\$_.txt" -ea SilentlyContinue
    $_ | Out-File "$path\$_.txt"
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 1
}

$files = Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Recurse | Where-Object {-not $_.PsIsContainer}
$keep = 10
if ($files.Count -gt $keep) {
    $files | Sort-Object CreationTime | Select-Object -First ($files.Count - $keep) | Remove-Item -Force -WhatIf
}

Remove the -WhatIf parameter to Remove-Item when your ready to delete for real.

Answer 4

@Andy: My rep is too low to comment so posting an answer. If you are getting strange results, it may be because you are looking in Windows Explorer which by default shows the Last Modified date instead of the Creation Date. To get results consistent with that shown in Windows Explorer, swap LastWriteTime for CreationTime like so: gci C:\temp\ -Recurse| where{-not $_.PsIsContainer}| sort LastWriteTime -desc | select -Skip 10| Remove-Item -Force