Reloaded: Clean up your folder. For MacOS

When downloading files from the web I usually have a predefined folder where all the downloads from my different browsers are stored. It doesn't take long till that folder grows to quite a remarkable size. Sorting out the files which are still needed is then a cumbersome and time-consuming process. Therefore, years ago I created a Java console app which takes care of removing files of a certain age.

Since I own a Mac this has become even more easy. For instance, to delete all files from a folder which haven't been accessed for 90 days and more, all you have to do is to create an automator script that executes the following unix shell command:

find /Users/Juri/Downloads/* -type f -atime +90 -exec rm -f {} \;

Note the usage of the parameter -atime. According to the man page

-atime n
     File  was  last  accessed n*24 hours ago.  When find figures out
     how many 24-hour periods ago the file  was  last  accessed,  any
     fractional part is ignored, so to match -atime +1, a file has to
     have been accessed at least two days ago.

This parameter assures that files which you often touch (open/modify) will not be deleted from the folder. It would be somehow wrong to use -mtime.

In addition after the overall cleaning process of the files you should get rid of empty folders which is done by invoking

find /Users/Juri/Downloads/* -type d -depth -empty -exec rmdir {} \;

Now you can combine everything in an Automator script and launch it at login time and voilà. From now on you don't have to care any more about cleaning your downloads folder :)

(P.S.: For future reference you may also like to redirect log entries into a file in order to know which files have been deleted)

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