Make windows automatically delete old files in your Downloads Folder

Over time we clutter up our computer with tons of files downloaded over the internet from our browser be it meme files, important documents, one time installers, etc.

With SSD prices still relatively high compared to HDD counter parts, leaving out old files sitting in our downloads folder unused for months or worse years could end up hurting our SSD’s performance in the long run because we end up running out of storage. Here’s a quick and simple way to avoid that by making windows automatically delete old files in your downloads folder.

Buckle up folks, this is a two minute job (at most).

Create a batch file. A batch file is simply a script that’s saved on to a disk. We’ll use this as a starting point.

REM Remove files older than 30 days
forfiles /p "C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Downloads" /s /m *.* /c "cmd /c Del @path" /d -30

You can adjust it as needed:

C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Downloads – the directory you want to keep clean
30 – age of file in number of days

Save as a bat file. Make sure you select **All files** in **Save as type** otherwise you’ll end up with a text file instead

Search for Task Scheduler on the start menu and open it

Populate the Name and Description and click **Next**

Set the trigger to Weekly and click **Next**

Choose a schedule, I want it to run on a Sunday at 9 am. Click **Next** afterwards

Start a program is already selected by default so just click **Next**

Look for the bat file you created earlier. Select it and click **Open**

This screen just confirms out selection. You can add arguments to the bat file but that’s for more advanced users. For our use case, just click **Next**

This screen summarizes our settings. Once you’re sure it’s correct, hit **Finish**

And that’s it. The task won’t run immediately since you set it on a schedule but when it does, you can see that the folder you selected will be cleared out of old files. Pretty neat huh?

Related

Related posts