How do I delete old files, except the newest using AppleScript? - applescript

Question

I have this script that I got from a MacRumors forum post, which deletes all old files in a folder:
-- Deletes all old files in Silversions folder, except the newest one.
set modDate to (15)
tell application "System Events"
set currentUser to (name of current user)
end tell
tell application "Finder"
try
delete (entire contents in folder "Silversions" of folder "From Unimportant Source" of folder "Documents" of folder "Libraries" of folder "Google Drive" of folder currentUser of folder "Users" of startup disk whose modification date is less than ((current date)) - modDate * days)
end try
end tell
Into this folder go attachments I get from particular automated emails. In theory, these will continually populate the folder, and I will always end up with the latest 15 days-worth of files. However, if the attachments are not successfully downloaded for some reason, I want to guarantee at least one file stays in the folder, which would be the most recently-gotten one.
How would I amend this script to leave the latest file in the folder?

Answer 1

I thought of a completely different way to accomplish this, using a little used feature introduced in OS X 10.4, Finder's sort command.
This is technically quicker.
-- Deletes all old files in Silversions folder, except the newest one.
tell application "System Events"
set currentUser to (name of current user)
end tell
tell application "Finder"
set theContainer to folder "Silversions" of folder "From Unimportant Source" of folder "Documents" of folder "Libraries" of folder "Google Drive" of folder currentUser of folder "Users" of startup disk
set sortedList to sort (get files of theContainer) by modification date
set keepName to name of (item -1 of sortedList)
delete (every file in theContainer whose name is not keepName)
end tell
display dialog "Kept file: " & keepName

Answer 2

Here's a flow that would do this. It basically repeats through every file in the main folder, checking its modification date, and if its newer, it stores it and deletes the previous newest file, otherwise it deletes that file.
-- Deletes all old files in Silversions folder, except the newest one.
tell application "System Events"
set currentUser to (name of current user)
end tell
tell application "Finder"
set theContainer to folder "Silversions" of folder "From Unimportant Source" of folder "Documents" of folder "Libraries" of folder "Google Drive" of folder currentUser of folder "Users" of startup disk
set newestFile to missing value
set newestDate to date "Monday, January 1, 1900 at 12:00:00 AM"
set deleteCount to 0
set fileList to files of theContainer
repeat with thisFile in fileList
set thisDate to (modification date of thisFile)
-- display dialog ("Newest: " & newestDate as string) & return & "This: " & thisDate as string
if thisDate > newestDate then
try
delete newestFile
set deleteCount to deleteCount + 1
end try
set newestFile to thisFile
set newestDate to (modification date of newestFile)
else
delete thisFile
set deleteCount to deleteCount + 1
end if
end repeat
end tell
display dialog "Deleted " & deleteCount & " files, and kept:" & return & (newestFile as string)