Linux find and delete files but redirect file names to be deleted

Question

Is there a way to write the file names to a file before they are deleted for reference later to check what has been deleted.

find <PATH> -type f -name "<filePattern>" -mtime +1 -delete 

Answer 1

Just add a -print expression to the invocation of find:

find <PATH> -type f -name "<filePattern>" -mtime +1 -delete -print > log

I'm not sure if this prints the name before or after the file is unlinked, but it should not matter. I suspect -delete -print unlinks before it prints, while -print -delete will print before it unlinks.

Answer 2

Like William said, you can use -print. However, instead of -print > log, you can also use the -fprint flag.

You'd want something like:

find <PATH> -type f -name "<filePattern>" -mtime +1 -fprint "<pathToLog>" -delete

For instance, I use this in a script:

find . -type d -name .~tmp~ -fprint /var/log/rsync-index-removal.log -delete

Answer 3

You can use -exec and rm -v:

find <PATH> -type f -name "<filePattern>" -mtime +1 -exec rm -v {} \;

rm -v will report what it is deleting.

Answer 4

With something like this you can execute multiple commands in the exec statement, like log to file, rm file, and whatever more you should need

find <PATH> -type f -name "<filePattern>" -mtime +1 -exec sh -c "echo {} >>mylog; rm -f {}" \;

Answer 5

From a shell script named removelogs.sh run the command sh removelogs.sh in terminal

this is the text in removelogs.sh file.

cd /var/log;
date >> /var/log/removedlogs.txt;
find . -maxdepth 4 -type f -name \*log.old -delete -print >> /var/log/removedlogs.txt

• . - to run at this location !!! so ensure you do not run this in root folder!!!
• -maxdepth - to prevent it getting out of control
• -type - to ensure just files
• -name - to ensure just your filtered names
• -print - to send the result to stdout
• -delete - to delete said files
• >> - appends to files not overwrites > creates new file

works for me on CENTOS7