watchDirectory Help > Creating New Tasks > Monitoring Method > The File Age monitoring method
Send email for old files
Use the File Age monitoring method together with the Automatically Email plugin to receive email notifications for old files - Great for workflow!Send an email to John for old files: "Did you forget to process this file?", and CC yourself and his colleague.
The File Age Monitoring Method
Back to All Monitoring MethodsThe File Age monitoring method is only available in the Professional edition of watchDirectory.
The File Age monitoring method scans the directory for files that have reached a certain age. These files will trigger a new file event, so your task can react to it. For example, you can configure watchDirectory to automatically copy/move those old files to another location.
File Age Settings
Trigger for files older than...
Here you configure how "old" the file has to be before watchDirectory will run your task on it. You can select a number of minutes, hours or days.Calculate age using...
Some file systems maintain multiple timestamps for each file. For example, NTFS records the date/time when a file is created, last modified and last accessed (read). WatchDirectory can calculate the age of a file using all these timestamps. You can also select the option to use the "highest" timestamp. When you select a timestamp that is not available on your filesystem, watchDirectory will automatically use the other timestamp.
Delete old files
Use the File Age monitoring method together with the Automatically Delete Files plugin to automatically remove old files.Ideal to automatically remove old log files!
To improve performance, Windows does not update the Last Accessed timestamp every time a file is accessed. Furthermore, the Administrator of your computer can disable the Last Accessed timestamps.
Depending on how a file is created, its creation date may be newer than its last modified date. It is strongly advised to use the option "Calculate age using the latest of Creation/Modified".
Poll the directory every X minutes
Here you set how often the File Age monitoring method should check the directory for old files. If the directory should be checked once a day, you should enter 1440 here (24 hours * 60 minutes).Remember triggered files
Move old files
Use the File Age monitoring method together with the Automatically Sort Files or the Automatically Copy Files plugin to automatically move old files to another directory.The filenames are stored, together with their timestamp, in the history database of this task. When the timestamp of a file changes, the File Age monitor will trigger your task again. If the file is removed, the entry in the history database is removed as well.