Disk cleanup- delete temp files

Mike_Janeway

September 15, 2021 at 9:25 pm UTC

I am looking for a way to perform a disk cleanup that will delete temp files. I would like to perform it on command and also run daily on users computers.

Thanks in advance

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Replies (14)

MichaelK-AutomoxSeptember 16, 2021

Could you be more specific? Are you talking about emptying the trash or are there specific directories you would want to clean out?

MarkH-AutomoxSeptember 16, 2021

One of our Support Engineers, Tony, put together this worklet to clean out a designated folder. Have you seen this yet?

Mike_JanewaySeptember 16, 2021

Mark,

If I wanted to delete the temp folder under c:\users\username\AppData\Local\Temp would I change $targetFolder = “Downloads” to $targetFolder = “Temp” in the Evaluation and remediation field?

MichaelK-AutomoxSeptember 16, 2021

$targetFolder = “Temp”
$ODtargetFolder = “AppData\Local\$targetFolder”

Making the above changes should do what you want.

Mike_JanewaySeptember 16, 2021

Michael,

I would like to delete files in specific directories. We want to delete the temp files in a user’s profile, temporary internet files and Windows\Temp. We have determined that some issues we have are resolved by deleting the temp files on a user’s computer and we want to automate the deletion of those files. We would also need to empty the trash folder if the deleted files are sent there.

Mike_JanewaySeptember 16, 2021

Michael,

Thank you, it did work.

MichaelK-AutomoxSeptember 16, 2021

powershell36 lines

# Location of folder contents to delete
$targetFolders = @(
'C:\windows\Temp'
'c:\Temp\test1'
'C:\Temp\test2'
'C:\Temp\test3'
)
$userFolders = @(
'AppData\Local\Temp'
'AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files'
)

# Query WMI and get a list of all user profile locations
$userProfiles = (Get-WmiObject win32_userprofile).LocalPath | Where-Object { $_.Substring(0,8) -EQ "C:\Users" }

# Build a list of all possible locations
$folderList = @()
foreach ($targetFolder in $targetFolders) {
$folderList += "$targetFolder"
}
foreach ($profile in $userProfiles) {
    foreach ($userFolder in $userFolders) {
    $folderList += "$profile\$userFolder"
    }
}
# Check each location for potential files
foreach ($folder in $folderList) {
# Check each target folder for existance, then for contents    
if (Test-Path $folder -PathType Container) {
    if ((Get-ChildItem $folder -Recurse | Measure-Object).Count -gt 0) {
        # Delete contents of folder
        Get-ChildItem $folder -Recurse | ForEach { Remove-Item $_.FullName -Force -Recurse }
    }
}
}
Clear-RecycleBin -Force

I was able to throw the above together using some of the existing worklet. This should give you a little more flexibility. You can see there’s a list for user specific directories and a list for directories where you already have the absolute path. I added an empty-recyclebin to the bottom.

You’ll get some errors if you try to delete temporary internet files while they’re in use, but otherwise it seems to work.

I will try to get this reformatted in to a worklet and pushed out to the catalog within the next week. Until then, if you copy the above in to the remediation section and replace the evaluation with just “exit 1” it should work.

Mike_JanewaySeptember 16, 2021

Michael,

Thank you very much for this. This is exactly what I am looking for.

Mike_JanewaySeptember 16, 2021

Michael,

Just to make sure I understand correctly in the Evaluation code field I just enter exit 1 and nothing else?

MichaelK-AutomoxSeptember 16, 2021

#10

Correct.

Mike_JanewaySeptember 16, 2021

#11

Thanks again. I will test it on the things I want to delete.

Mike_JanewaySeptember 30, 2021

#12

Michael,

Is there a way to add a command to delete files that are older than xx days in the downloads and OneDrive downloads?

MichaelK-AutomoxOctober 4, 2021

#13

You could use a where-object in the get-childitem function to restrict by the last write time of the file. For example, this is the same script but modified to only delete files which haven’t been written to for at least 30 days.

powershell36 lines

# Location of folder contents to delete
$targetFolders = @(
    'C:\windows\Temp'
    'c:\Temp\test1'
    'C:\Temp\test2'
    'C:\Temp\test3'
)
$userFolders = @(
    'AppData\Local\Temp'
    'AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files'
)

# Query WMI and get a list of all user profile locations
$userProfiles = (Get-WmiObject win32_userprofile).LocalPath | Where-Object { $_.Substring(0,8) -EQ "C:\Users" }

# Build a list of all possible locations
$folderList = @()
foreach ($targetFolder in $targetFolders) {
    $folderList += "$targetFolder"
}
foreach ($profile in $userProfiles) {
    foreach ($userFolder in $userFolders) {
        $folderList += "$profile\$userFolder"
    }
}
# Check each location for potential files
foreach ($folder in $folderList) {
    # Check each target folder for existance, then for contents    
    if (Test-Path $folder -PathType Container) {
        if ((Get-ChildItem $folder -Recurse | Measure-Object).Count -gt 0) {
            # Delete contents of folder
            Get-ChildItem $folder -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.LastWriteTime -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-30)} | ForEach { Remove-Item $_.FullName -Force -Recurse }
        }
    }
}
Clear-RecycleBin -Force

Mike_JanewayOctober 4, 2021

#14

Michael,

Thank you for this information. I will test it on our system.

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