Forfiles: How to delete files recursively on Windows Server

The Forfiles command on Windows selects and executes a command on a file or set of files. Forfiles is ideal for batch processing through scripts, for instance on Windows Server systems. With Forfiles, you can run a command on or pass arguments to multiple files. For example, you could run the type or del command on all files in a tree with the .txt extension.
Published on Wednesday, 1 January 2014
command-line powershell windows windows-server

In this post you'll learn how to delete files recursively with Forfiles on Windows Server, for example deleting files recursive if files are older than 'n' days (where n is 3, 5 or 10 days for example).

The Forfiles command syntax is:

forfiles [/p <Path>] [/m <SearchMask>] [/s] [/c "<Command>"] [/d [{+|-}][{<Date>|<Days>}]]

Forfiles on Windows works by implementing the recurse subdirectories flag on tools that are designed to process only a single file. Lets take an example I use a lot as a scheduled task, and break it down.

Using forfiles, you can easily batch delete files older than 7 days in Windows.

Forfiles batch process and delete files older than 'n' days

An example to batch delete all files older than seven days in C:\Windows\Temp:

ForFiles /S /P C:\Windows\Temp /D -7 `
  /C "cmd /c if @isdir==FALSE del /F /Q @file"
  • /S : Instructs forfiles to recurse into subdirectories. Like "DIR /S"
  • /P [pathname] : Indicates the path to start searching. The default folder is the current working directory (.).
  • /D [date] : Selects files with a last modified date greater than or equal to (+), or less than or equal to (-), the specified date using the "MM/dd/yyyy" format; or selects files with a last modified date greater than or equal to (+) the current date plus "dd" days, or less than or equal to (-) the current date minus "dd" days. A valid "dd" number of days can be any number in the range of 0 - 32768. "+" is taken as default sign if not specified.
  • /C [command] : Indicates the command to execute for each file.
    Command strings should be wrapped in double quotes. The default command is "cmd /c echo @file". The following variables can be used in the command string:
    @file - returns the name of the file.
    @fname - returns the file name without extension.
    @ext - returns only the extension of the file.
    @path - returns the full path of the file.
    @relpath - returns the relative path of the file.
    @isdir - returns "TRUE" if a file type is a directory, and "FALSE" for files.
    @fsize - returns the size of the file in bytes.
    @fdate - returns the last modified date of the file.
    @ftime - returns the last modified time of the file.

So what this example does, is delete all files older than one (1) day, in C:\Windows\Temp using Forfiles on Windows. This Forfiles command is ideal for batch processing, to delete files older than 'n' days using a .bat file.

More Windows forfiles command tips

Another great forfiles example to list files older than 3 days is:

forfiles /P Z:\devops\sites\example.org /M *.* /D -3 /C "cmd /c dir @FILE"

This command finds all files in the directory Z:\devops\sites\example.org that are older than 3 days, and does a dir command on those files.

Again /P for the path to perform the command in, /M for a searchmask (*.* for everything), /D for the last modified date, and /C the command to perform against @FILE.