Powershell: Find Folders and Run Command in Those Folders

Question

so trying to find a way to combine a couple of things the Stack Overflow crowd has helped me do in the past. So I know how to find folders with a specific name and move them where I want them to go:

$source_regex = [regex]::escape($sourceDir) (gci $sourceDir -recurse | where {-not ($_.psiscontainer)} | select -expand fullname) -match "\\$search\\" | foreach { $file_dest = ($_ | split-path -parent) -replace $source_regex,$targetDir if (-not (test-path $file_dest)){mkdir $file_dest} move-item $_ -Destination $file_dest -force -verbose }

And I also know how to find and delete files of a specific file extension within a preset directory:

Get-ChildItem $source -Include $searchfile -Recurse -Force | foreach{ "Removing file $($_.FullName)"; Remove-Item -force -recurse $_}

What I'm trying to do now is combine the two. Basically, I'm looking for a way to tell Powershell:

"Look for all folders named 'Draft Materials.' When you find a folder with that name, get its full path ($source), then run a command to delete files of a given file extension ($searchfile) from that folder."

What I'm trying to do is create a script I can use to clean up an archive drive when and if space starts to get tight. The idea is that as I develop things, a lot of times I go through a ton of incremental non-final drafts (hence folder name "Draft Materials"), and I want to get rid of the exported products (the PDFs, the BMPs, the AVIs, the MOVs, atc.) and just leave the master files that created them (the INDDs, the PRPROJs, the AEPs, etc.) so I can reconstruct them down the line if I ever need to. I can tell the script what drive and folder to search (and I'd assign that to a variable since the backup location may change and I'd like to just change it once), but I need help with the rest.

I'm stuck because I'm not quite sure how to combine the two pieces of code that I have to get Powershell to do this.

Theo · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-25 15:30:25Z

If what you want is to

"Look for all folders named 'Draft Materials.' When you find a folder with that name, get its full path ($source), then run a command to delete files of a given file extension ($searchfile) from that folder."

then you could do something like:

$rootPath = 'X:\Path\To\Start\Searching\From' # the starting point for the search $searchFolder = 'Draft Materials' # the folder name to search for $deleteThese = '*.PDF', '*.BMP', '*.AVI', '*.MOV' # an array of file patterns to delete # get a list of all folders called 'Draft Materials' Get-ChildItem -Path $rootPath -Directory -Filter $searchFolder -Recurse | ForEach-Object { # inside each of these folders, get the files you want to delete and remove them Get-ChildItem -Path $_.FullName -File -Recurse -Include $deleteThese | Remove-Item -WhatIf }

Or use Get-ChildItem only once, having it search for files. Then test if their fullnames contain the folder called 'Draft Materials'

$rootPath = 'X:\Path\To\Start\Searching\From' $searchFolder = 'Draft Materials' $deleteThese = '*.PDF', '*.BMP', '*.AVI', '*.MOV' # get a list of all files with extensions from the $deleteThese array Get-ChildItem -Path $rootPath -File -Recurse -Include $deleteThese | # if in their full path names the folder 'Draft Materials' is present, delete them Where-Object { $_.FullName -match "\\$searchFolder\\" } | Remove-Item -WhatIf

In both cases I have added safety switch -WhatIf so when you run this, nothing gets deleted and in the console is written what would happen. If that info shows the correct files are being removed, take off (or comment out) -Whatif and run the code again.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Powershell: Find Folders and Run Command in Those Folders

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Related