How to delete old logs with log4j2

Since 2.5, Log4j supports a custom Delete action that is executed on every rollover.

You can control which files are deleted by any combination of:

1. Name (matching a glob or a regex)
2. Age (“delete if 14 days old or older”)
3. Count (“keep only the most recent 3”)
4. Size (“keep only the most recent files up to 500MB”)

Users who need even more fine-grained control over which files to delete can specify a script condition using any supported JSR-223 scripting language.

Please check out the documentation, it has three full examples that may be useful.

For your question, this snippet should work:

<RollingFile name="rollingFile" 
      fileName="/path/app.log"
      filePattern="/path/app.%d{yyyy-MM-dd}.log"
      ignoreExceptions="false">
. . .
      <DefaultRolloverStrategy>
        <!--
          * only files in the log folder, no sub folders
          * only rolled over log files (name match)
          * only files that are 4 days old or older
        -->
        <Delete basePath="${sys:storm.home}/logs/" maxDepth="1">
          <IfFileName glob="*.service.????????" />
          <IfLastModified age="4d" />
        </Delete>
      </DefaultRolloverStrategy>
 . . .

<RollingFile>

Finally, be careful! There is no way to recover files deleted this way. 🙂