A macos script that removes any old plex media files with (.ts) file type older than 7 days from a user Teddy’s desktop folder “Plex Media” and /Users/Teddy/Movies folder
To create a macOS script that removes .ts files older than 7 days from the “Plex Media” folder on the user Teddy’s desktop and the /Users/Teddy/Movies folder, you can use a bash script. Open Terminal and use a text editor like nano to create the script:
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nano remove_old_plex_files.sh
Copy and paste the following script into the text editor:
Copy code – Link: https://gist.github.com/patent-ed/70af956fc1f064fdcfc4f628f8c93b6b.js
| #!/bin/bash | |
| # Set directories | |
| plex_media_folder="/Users/Teddy/Desktop/Plex Media" | |
| movies_folder="/Users/Teddy/Movies" | |
| # Find and remove .ts files older than 7 days | |
| find "${plex_media_folder}" -type f -name "*.ts" -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \; | |
| find "${movies_folder}" -type f -name "*.ts" -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \; | |
| echo "Old Plex media files removed successfully." | |
| # This empty's the trash can | |
| osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to empty the trash' |
Save the file by pressing Ctrl + X, then Y, and hit Enter.
Now, you need to make the script executable. In the Terminal, run:
bash
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chmod +x remove_old_plex_files.sh
To run the script, simply execute the following command in Terminal:
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./remove_old_plex_files.sh
This script will search for .ts files older than 7 days in the specified folders and remove them.
Next we will automate this process by a launchd to schedule the script to run at a specific interval; in this case 1x a day.
To set up the existing script to run once every day and empty the trash, you can use launchd. Here are the steps to create a launchd plist file and configure it to run the script daily:
Move the script to a suitable location (e.g., /usr/local/bin). Open Terminal and execute the following command:
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sudo mv remove_old_plex_files.sh /usr/local/bin
Create a new plist file for launchd. Use a text editor like nano to create the file:
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nano ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.remove_old_plex_files.plist
Copy and paste the following plist content into the text editor:
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Copy code – Link: https://gist.github.com/patent-ed/70af956fc1f064fdcfc4f628f8c93b6b.js
| <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> | |
| <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> | |
| <plist version="1.0"> | |
| <dict> | |
| <key>Label</key> | |
| <string>com.user.remove_old_plex_files</string> | |
| <key>ProgramArguments</key> | |
| <array> | |
| <string>/usr/local/bin/remove_old_plex_files.sh</string> | |
| </array> | |
| <key>StartCalendarInterval</key> | |
| <dict> | |
| <key>Hour</key> | |
| <integer>1</integer> | |
| <key>Minute</key> | |
| <integer>0</integer> | |
| </dict> | |
| <key>StandardErrorPath</key> | |
| <string>/tmp/com.user.remove_old_plex_files.err</string> | |
| <key>StandardOutPath</key> | |
| <string>/tmp/com.user.remove_old_plex_files.out</string> | |
| </dict> | |
| </plist> |
This plist file is configured to run the script daily at 1:00 AM. You can change the Hour and Minute values to your desired time.
Save the file by pressing Ctrl + X, then Y, and hit Enter.
Load the plist file into launchd:
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launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.remove_old_plex_files.plist
Update the script to empty the trash. Open the script using nano:
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sudo nano /usr/local/bin/remove_old_plex_files.sh
Verify code is present at the following line at the end of the script to empty the trash:
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to empty the trash'
Save the file by pressing Ctrl + X, then Y, and hit Enter.
The script will now run daily at the specified time and remove old Plex media files as well as empty the trash.
