Powershell to remove files from CSV older than x days

Question

I am trying to read a CSV with a list of files including folder path and then delete them if they are older than x days.

I can do this is I list folders in the csv but cannot get it to work for just files.

CSV

FullName,,,,,,,,,,,,,
E:\$RECYCLE.BIN\S-1-5-21-352280589-691296097-1232828436-9414\$RCUCS3H.txt,,,,,,,,,,,,,
E:\$RECYCLE.BIN\S-1-5-21-352280589-691296097-1232828436-9414\$RWF5KKJ.txt,,,,,,,,,,,,,
E:\Account Lockout Files\Alockout.zip,,,,,,,,,,,,,
E:\Account Lockout Files\AlockoutXP.zip,,,,,,,,,,,,,

PowerShell contains.

$DatetoDelete = (Get-Date).AddDays(-3650)

Get-Content 'C:\delete\1.csv' | ForEach-Object { $_.Trim() } | Where-Object { $_.LastWriteTime -lt $DatetoDelete } | Remove-Item -Force

When I use the script I did above it just deletes the files even if they are older, please can any one assist? thanks.

Answer 1

You are almost there with your code, but you are missing the actual check for the last write time, if you use Get-Item to get the properties of the file, you will then have the LastWriteTime property for you to use in your Where-Object

The below should do what you need with just one extra command and a pipe

Get-Content 'C:\delete\1.csv' | ForEach-Object { 
$_.Trim()
Get-Item -Path $_ |Where-Object { $_.LastWriteTime -lt $DatetoDelete } | Remove-Item -Force
}

Answer 2

Thanks for sharing an example of the input csv file. We now can be sure it actually is csv with headers and therefore, using Get-Content is the wrong cmdlet.

Try with Import-Csv instead:

$DatetoDelete = (Get-Date).AddDays(-3650).Date  # set to midnight

Import-Csv -Path 'C:\delete\1.csv' | ForEach-Object {
    $file = Get-Item -Path $_.FullName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
    if (($file) -and $file.LastWriteTime -lt $DatetoDelete) {
        $file | Remove-Item -Force
    }
}

^{For some files in the csv you may not have permissions to delete, like perhaps the ones inside the E:\\$RECYCLE.BIN\\S-1-5-21-352280589-691296097-1232828436-9414 ..}