how to automatically delete ichat transcripts older than X days / weeks

Question

I like to store ichat transcripts for a few days so that if I forget something referenced in a chat I can refer back to it. However, after a week or so, I would prefer these transcripts be deleted. Is it possible to automate this process? How?

Answer 1

I guess there are many ways, but because OSX is UNIX based you can use the good ol' crontab and some bash scripting.

• Create a script delete_old_transcripts.sh. Make sure it has execute rights.

Code inside the sh file:

#!/bin/bash

$days_old=7
find "~/Documents/iChats" -type f -mtime +$days_old -exec rm -f {} \;

• Add the script to your user crontab to run each hour (I guess you don't keep your computer open all day, so if it misses one hour it will delete your old files the next hour).

Open crontab configuration:

crontab -e

Add and save:

0 * * * * <path to delete_old_transcripts.sh>