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find -mtime +7: find and delete files older than N days

verified onenvironmentlocal · windows 10.0.26200 arm64 · GNU bash 5.3.15 (Git Bash) · find (GNU findutils) 4.11.0updated
tool
find
versions
GNU findutils 4.x
os
linux, macos, windows

find /path -type f -mtime +7 lists files whose content was last modified more than 7 days ago; add -delete to remove them. Run it once without -delete to check the list. -mtime counts in whole 24-hour periods and the fractional part is discarded, so +7 means "at least 8 full days old", not "older than 7 days" in the everyday sense.

Example

bash
mkdir -p logs
touch -d '2 days ago'  logs/recent.log
touch -d '10 days ago' logs/old.log
touch -d '30 days ago' logs/older.log
find logs -type f -name '*.log' -mtime +7 | sort

Output

logs/old.log
logs/older.log

Delete them

bash
mkdir -p logs
touch -d '2 days ago'  logs/recent.log
touch -d '10 days ago' logs/old.log
find logs -type f -name '*.log' -mtime +7 -print -delete
ls logs

Output

logs/old.log
recent.log

Put -delete last: find evaluates the expression from left to right, so find logs -delete -name '*.log' would delete everything before testing the name.

How the numbers work

TestMatches
-mtime +7Modified at least 8 days ago (age in days, rounded down, is greater than 7)
-mtime 7Age rounded down is exactly 7 days
-mtime -7Modified less than 7 days ago
-mmin +60Modified more than 60 minutes ago
-atime / -ctimeSame arithmetic for access time and status-change time
-newermt "2026-01-01"Modified after a given date (GNU find)

Alternatives to -delete

bash
# portable (POSIX) form
find logs -type f -mtime +7 -exec rm -f {} +

# compress instead of deleting
find logs -type f -name '*.log' -mtime +7 -exec gzip {} +

The + at the end passes many files to a single rm or gzip call, which is much faster than \; (one process per file).

Minutes, dates and depth

-mmin works in minutes, -newermt compares with a date or a relative time that GNU find parses like touch -d, and -maxdepth 1 stops find from descending into subdirectories:

bash
mkdir -p logs/sub
touch -d '10 days ago' logs/old.log logs/sub/deep.log
touch -d '90 minutes ago' logs/hour.log
touch logs/new.log
echo '--- older than 60 minutes:'; find logs -type f -mmin +60 | sort
echo '--- not newer than 5 days ago:'; find logs -type f ! -newermt '5 days ago' | sort
echo '--- top level only:'; find logs -maxdepth 1 -type f -mtime +7

Output

--- older than 60 minutes:
logs/hour.log
logs/old.log
logs/sub/deep.log
--- not newer than 5 days ago:
logs/old.log
logs/sub/deep.log
--- top level only:
logs/old.log

Common mistakes

  • Unquoted globs. find . -name *.log -mtime +7 lets the shell expand *.log first; with several matching files in the current directory find stops with paths must precede expression. Always quote the pattern.
  • A missing terminator. -exec rm {} without \; or + fails with missing argument to -exec.
  • Forgetting -type f. Without it, -mtime +7 -delete also matches old directories; find deletes an old directory only if it is empty, and prints an error for the others.
  • Changing the time you test. -mtime is the content modification time. Copying files without preserving times (cp without -p) resets it, so a restored backup looks new.

macOS and BSD find

BSD find on macOS supports -mtime, -mmin, -delete and -maxdepth with the same meaning, and also accepts units such as -mtime +7d or -mtime +12h. -newermt is supported there too, but touch -d '10 days ago' used in the examples is GNU-only; on macOS set a time with touch -t YYYYMMDDhhmm file. To find files by size instead of age, see find files larger than a size.

FAQ

Why does find -mtime +1 not match a file modified yesterday?

find rounds the age down to whole days, so a file 36 hours old has an age of 1 and +1 needs an age of at least 2. Use -mtime +0 for older than 24 hours, or -mmin +1440 for an exact minute count.

How do I delete old files but not the ones in subdirectories?

Add -maxdepth 1 right after the path, for example find logs -maxdepth 1 -type f -mtime +7 -delete. -maxdepth is a GNU and BSD extension; it must come before tests to avoid a warning.

How do I run this cleanup every day?

Put the command in a cron job or a systemd timer with an absolute path, and log its -print output. Test it once by hand without -delete, since cron runs it without asking.

Sources

Related pages

errors · findfind: paths must precede expressionfind reports paths must precede expression when an unquoted glob such as *.txt is expanded by the shell into several file names. Quote it: find . -name '*.txt'.errors · findfind: missing argument to `-exec'find reports missing argument to -exec when the command is not closed by an escaped semicolon or by a plus sign. End it with ';' or use -exec cmd {} + instead.commands · findfind files larger than 100MB: find . -type f -size +100Mfind . -type f -size +100M lists files bigger than 100 MiB. Sizes round up to whole units (k, M, G), so -size -1M matches only empty files; use -size -1024k.commands · tartar -xzf: extract a .tar.gz archiveExtract a .tar.gz archive with tar -xzf archive.tar.gz. Use -C to choose the target directory, -t to list contents first and -v to print each extracted file.commands · findfind . -empty: find and delete empty files and directoriesfind . -type f -empty lists empty files and -type d -empty empty directories; -delete removes them. Why nested empty folders go too, and how to keep the top.