Azure data factory: Delete activity doesnt work as expected

Question

Hi there,

I need to delete old files. Toy example: on azure data storage I have created a bunch of files (notice Modified field):

my Delete looks like:

so - delete files created 4 hours ago (original files were created some 10 min ago). However when I run it Delete passed successfully but delete 0 files I got:

Any idea what is wrong?

(I have followed: http://datanrg.blogspot.com/2019/03/delete-activity-in-azure-data-factory.html )

thx, Tomas

Answer 1

Hi @Tomas Hudik ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum and thanks for reaching out here.

Appreciate much for sharing the configuration screenshots which helped to reproduce and identify the issue.

Potential Problem: When we use Filter by last modified property, the files with last modified time in the range [Start time, End time] will be filtered for further processing during the activity run. But as per the image you have shared, seems like you are passing only the end time but not the start time for the last modified range which is why no files are being deleted. I was able to reproduce the issue by only configuring the end time but not the start time and 0 files were deleted.

When I provided both start time and end time range for the filter by last modified, expected files were deleted as per the defined range.
Hence, please enter start time of the filter by last modified to something like @addToTime(utcnow(), -20, 'Year') (Please note, you can modify the year number as per your need. This is just an example for reference) and End time to @addhours(utcnow(), -4) and it should work as expected.

Result:

Hope this helps. Please do let us know if you have further questions.

---

Please don’t forget to Accept Answer and Yes for "was this answer helpful" wherever the information provided helps you, this can be beneficial to other community members.

Answer 2

Hi @Tomas Hudik

If you want to delete files which are modified 4 hours ago, use the below expression in last modified field

addhours(utcnow(),-4)