Simple Auto-Delete Sessions After 8 Hours

Use this file at the top of every PHP page (before any output):

🧩 What This Does

✅ Stores session files in /sessions/ folder.
✅ Automatically deletes files older than 8 hours (every time a session starts).
✅ Ensures PHP’s garbage collection also respects 8-hour lifetime.
✅ Fully standalone — no cron job or database needed. 

<?php
// Folder to store sessions
$sessionPath = __DIR__ . '/sessions';

// Create folder if not exists
if (!is_dir($sessionPath)) {
    mkdir($sessionPath, 0700, true);
}

// Set PHP to use this folder for session files
ini_set('session.save_path', $sessionPath);

// Delete old session files (older than 8 hours = 28800 seconds)
$files = glob($sessionPath . '/sess_*');
$now = time();
foreach ($files as $file) {
    if (is_file($file) && ($now - filemtime($file)) > 28800) { // 8 hours
        unlink($file);
    }
}

// Set session lifetime (for garbage collection)
ini_set('session.gc_maxlifetime', 28800); // 8 hours
ini_set('session.gc_probability', 1);
ini_set('session.gc_divisor', 1);

// Start the session
session_start();
?>