Delete a file/directory in Python (os.remove, shutil.rmtree) | note.nkmk.me (2024)

In Python, os.remove() allows you to delete (remove) a file, and shutil.rmtree() allows you to delete a directory (folder) along with all its files and subdirectories. You can also use os.rmdir() and os.removedirs() to remove only empty directories.

Please note that in all cases, files or directories are permanently deleted and will not be moved to the trash.

If you want to move or copy files and directories to a different location, you can use os.shutil.move() and os.shutil.copy().

• Move a file/directory in Python (shutil.move)
• Copy a file/directory in Python (shutil.copy, shutil.copytree)

The sample code in this article imports the os and shutil modules as shown below. Both are part of the standard library, so no additional installation is necessary.

import osimport shutil

Delete a file with os.remove()

os.remove() allows you to delete a file.

• os.remove() — Miscellaneous operating system interfaces — Python 3.11.4 documentation

Specify the file's path (either as a path string or a path-like object such as pathlib.Path), and it will be deleted.

os.remove('temp/file.txt')

Note that os.remove() can only delete files. Attempting to delete a directory will cause an error.

# os.remove('temp/')# PermissionError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: 'temp/'

To delete a directory, use shutil.rmtree(), os.rmdir(), and os.removedirs(), which are explained below.

Delete a directory and its contents with shutil.rmtree()

shutil.rmtree() allows you to delete a directory and all of its files and subdirectories.

• shutil.rmtree() — High-level file operations — Python 3.11.4 documentation

shutil.rmtree() only accepts paths pointing to directories. Providing a file's path will result in an error.

# shutil.rmtree('temp/dir/file.txt')# NotADirectoryError: [Errno 20] Not a directory: 'temp/dir/file.txt'

If a directory path is specified, all files and subdirectories in the directory are deleted recursively. When specifying a directory, the trailing delimiter (/) may be present or absent.

shutil.rmtree('temp/dir/')

Empty a directory

If you want to empty a directory, simply delete everything with shutil.rmtree() and create a new directory with the same name using os.mkdir().

• Create a directory with mkdir(), makedirs() in Python

target_dir = 'temp'shutil.rmtree(target_dir)os.mkdir(target_dir)

Delete an empty directory with os.rmdir() and os.removedirs()

There are also os.rmdir() and os.removedirs() that only delete empty directories.

os.rmdir()

os.rmdir() deletes a single empty directory.

• os.rmdir() — Miscellaneous operating system interfaces — Python 3.11.4 documentation

os.rmdir('temp/dir_empty/')

An error will occur if the directory is not empty, meaning it contains files or subdirectories.

# os.rmdir('temp/dir_not_empty/')# OSError: [Errno 66] Directory not empty: 'temp/dir_not_empty/'

You can use exception handling to safely delete only empty directories without causing errors for non-empty ones. In the following example, if the directory isn't empty, the program simply skips it using the pass statement.

• Exception handling in Python (try, except, else, finally)

try: os.rmdir('temp/dir_not_empty/')except OSError as e: pass

To delete the contents all together, use shutil.rmtree() as described above.

shutil.rmtree('temp/dir_not_empty/')

os.removedirs()

os.removedirs() deletes empty directories recursively.

• os.removedirs() — Miscellaneous operating system interfaces — Python 3.11.4 documentation

If an empty directory is specified, any parent directories that are also empty will be removed in order.

For example, os.removedirs('foo/bar/baz') will first remove the directory 'foo/bar/baz', and then remove 'foo/bar' and 'foo' if they are empty.os.removedirs() — Miscellaneous operating system interfaces — Python 3.11.4 documentation

Consider the following files and directories:

temp/└── dir1/ ├── dir2/ │ └── dir3/ └── file.txt

Specify an empty directory at the end.

os.removedirs('temp/dir1/dir2/dir3')

The result is as follows: dir3 is deleted because it's empty. After dir3 is removed, dir2 becomes empty and is then deleted. dir1 is not deleted because it is not empty.

temp/└── dir1/ └── file.txt

Delete multiple files based on certain conditions with wildcards and regex

As a practical use case for os.remove(), let's see how to delete multiple files based on certain conditions.

Please note that using ** in glob.glob() can be time-consuming when dealing with a large number of files and directories. If feasible, consider using conditions with other special characters for improved efficiency.

Use wildcards to specify conditions

The glob module allows you to use wildcard characters like * to generate a list of files and directories. For detailed usage, refer to the following article.

• How to use glob() in Python

Consider the following files and directories:

temp/├── 123.jpg├── 456.txt├── abc.txt└── dir/ ├── 000.csv ├── 789.txt └── xyz.jpg

You can extract and delete txt files, including those in subdirectories.

import osimport globfor p in glob.glob('temp/**/*.txt', recursive=True): if os.path.isfile(p): os.remove(p)

Here's the result.

temp/├── 123.jpg└── dir/ ├── 000.csv └── xyz.jpg

In the above example, there's no problem. However, under different conditions, directories might be included in the results. Therefore, os.path.isfile() is used to target only files.

• Check if a file or a directory exists in Python

If you want to delete directories, use os.path.isdir() and shutil.rmtree() instead of os.path.isfile() and os.remove().

Use regex to specify conditions

For complex conditions that can't be handled by glob alone, use the re module to specify conditions with regular expressions.

• Regular expressions with the re module in Python

Consider the following files and directories:

temp/├── 123.jpg├── 456.txt├── abc.txt└── dir/ ├── 000.csv ├── 789.txt └── xyz.jpg

Use glob.glob() with ** and recursive=True to recursively list all files and directories, and then filter them by regex with re.search().

For example, to extract and delete files with names consisting only of digits and either a txt or csv extension, including files in subdirectories, use \d to match digits, + to match one or more repetitions, and (a|b) to match either a or b.

import osimport globimport refor p in glob.glob('temp/**', recursive=True): if os.path.isfile(p) and re.search('\d+\.(txt|csv)', p): os.remove(p)

Here's the result.

temp/├── 123.jpg├── abc.txt└── dir/ └── xyz.jpg