Python – How to delete a file or folder?
In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to delete a file or directory in Python
. The process of removing a file or folder in Python is straightforward using the os
module.
os.remove
– Deletes a file.os.rmdir
– Deletes a folder.shutil.rmtree
– Deletes a directory and all its contents.
1. Deletes a file.
First, we will see a method to delete a file from a directory using the os.remove
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
# getting the filename from the user
file_path = input("Enter filename:- ")
# checking whether file exists or not
if os.path.exists(file_path):
# removing the file using the os.remove() method
os.remove(file_path)
else:
# file not found message
print("File not found in the directory")
Output
Enter filename:- sample.txt
File not found in the directory
2. Deletes a folder.
The folder which we are going to delete must be empty. Python will shows a Warning is stating that the folder is not empty. Before removing a folder, make sure that it is empty. We can get the list of files present in the directory using os.listdir()
Method. From that, we can check whether the folder is empty or not.
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
# getting the folder path from the user
folder_path = input("Enter folder path:- ")
# checking whether folder exists or not
if os.path.exists(folder_path):
# checking whether the folder is empty or not
if len(os.listdir(folder_path)) == 0:
# removing the file using the os.remove() method
os.rmdir(folder_path)
else:
# messaging saying folder not empty
print("Folder is not empty")
else:
# file not found message
print("File not found in the directory")
Output
Enter folder path:- sample
Folder is not empty
3. Deletes a directory and all its contents.
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
import sys
import shutil
# Get directory name
mydir= input("Enter directory name: ")
try:
shutil.rmtree(mydir)
except OSError as e:
print("Error: %s - %s." % (e.filename, e.strerror))
Output
Enter directory name: d:\logs
Error: d:\logs - The system cannot find the path specified.
References
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