How do I copy an entire directory of files into an existing directory using Python?

Python 3.8 introduced the dirs_exist_ok argument to shutil.copytree:

Recursively copy an entire directory tree rooted at src to a directory named dst and return the destination directory. dirs_exist_ok dictates whether to raise an exception in case dst or any missing parent directory already exists.

Therefore, with Python 3.8+ this should work:

import shutil

shutil.copytree('bar', 'foo')
shutil.copytree('baz', 'foo', dirs_exist_ok=True)

Here is my pass at the problem. I modified the source code for copytree to keep the original functionality, but now no error occurs when the directory already exists. I also changed it so it doesn't overwrite existing files but rather keeps both copies, one with a modified name, since this was important for my application.

import shutil
import os


def _copytree(src, dst, symlinks=False, ignore=None):
    """
    This is an improved version of shutil.copytree which allows writing to
    existing folders and does not overwrite existing files but instead appends
    a ~1 to the file name and adds it to the destination path.
    """

    names = os.listdir(src)
    if ignore is not None:
        ignored_names = ignore(src, names)
    else:
        ignored_names = set()

    if not os.path.exists(dst):
        os.makedirs(dst)
        shutil.copystat(src, dst)
    errors = []
    for name in names:
        if name in ignored_names:
            continue
        srcname = os.path.join(src, name)
        dstname = os.path.join(dst, name)
        i = 1
        while os.path.exists(dstname) and not os.path.isdir(dstname):
            parts = name.split('.')
            file_name = ''
            file_extension = parts[-1]
            # make a new file name inserting ~1 between name and extension
            for j in range(len(parts)-1):
                file_name += parts[j]
                if j < len(parts)-2:
                    file_name += '.'
            suffix = file_name + '~' + str(i) + '.' + file_extension
            dstname = os.path.join(dst, suffix)
            i+=1
        try:
            if symlinks and os.path.islink(srcname):
                linkto = os.readlink(srcname)
                os.symlink(linkto, dstname)
            elif os.path.isdir(srcname):
                _copytree(srcname, dstname, symlinks, ignore)
            else:
                shutil.copy2(srcname, dstname)
        except (IOError, os.error) as why:
            errors.append((srcname, dstname, str(why)))
        # catch the Error from the recursive copytree so that we can
        # continue with other files
        except BaseException as err:
            errors.extend(err.args[0])
    try:
        shutil.copystat(src, dst)
    except WindowsError:
        # can't copy file access times on Windows
        pass
    except OSError as why:
        errors.extend((src, dst, str(why)))
    if errors:
        raise BaseException(errors)

Here is a version that expects a pathlib.Path as input.

# Recusively copies the content of the directory src to the directory dst.
# If dst doesn't exist, it is created, together with all missing parent directories.
# If a file from src already exists in dst, the file in dst is overwritten.
# Files already existing in dst which don't exist in src are preserved.
# Symlinks inside src are copied as symlinks, they are not resolved before copying.
#
def copy_dir(src, dst):
    dst.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
    for item in os.listdir(src):
        s = src / item
        d = dst / item
        if s.is_dir():
            copy_dir(s, d)
        else:
            shutil.copy2(str(s), str(d))

Note that this function requires Python 3.6, which is the first version of Python where os.listdir() supports path-like objects as input. If you need to support earlier versions of Python, you can replace listdir(src) by listdir(str(src)).

Try This:

import os,shutil

def copydir(src, dst):
  h = os.getcwd()
  src = r"{}".format(src)
  if not os.path.isdir(dst):
     print("\n[!] No Such directory: ["+dst+"] !!!")
     exit(1)

  if not os.path.isdir(src):
     print("\n[!] No Such directory: ["+src+"] !!!")
     exit(1)
  if "\\" in src:
     c = "\\"
     tsrc = src.split("\\")[-1:][0]
  else:
    c = "/"
    tsrc = src.split("/")[-1:][0]

  os.chdir(dst)
  if os.path.isdir(tsrc):
    print("\n[!] The Directory Is already exists !!!")
    exit(1)
  try:
    os.mkdir(tsrc)
  except WindowsError:
    print("\n[!] Error: In[ {} ]\nPlease Check Your Dirctory Path !!!".format(src))
    exit(1)
  os.chdir(h)
  files = []
  for i in os.listdir(src):
    files.append(src+c+i)
  if len(files) > 0:
    for i in files:
        if not os.path.isdir(i):
            shutil.copy2(i, dst+c+tsrc)

  print("\n[*] Done ! :)")

copydir("c:\folder1", "c:\folder2")

I couldn't edit the "Boris Dalstein" answer above so here is the improved version of this code:

EDIT on the improvements made:

• The input args could be str path or pathlib.Path object. Type hint will help.
• If the source is a directory, it will create that directory as well
• types are defined for local variables so no warning by the IDE

# Recusively copies the content of the directory src to the directory dst.
# If dst doesn't exist, it is created, together with all missing parent directories.
# If a file from src already exists in dst, the file in dst is overwritten.
# Files already existing in dst which don't exist in src are preserved.
# Symlinks inside src are copied as symlinks, they are not resolved before copying.
#

def copy_dir(source: Union[str, pathlib.Path], destination: Union[str, pathlib.Path]):
    destination_path: pathlib.Path

    if isinstance(source, str):
        source_path = pathlib.Path(source)
    elif isinstance(source, pathlib.Path):
        source_path = source

    if isinstance(destination, str):
        destination_path = pathlib.Path(destination)
    elif isinstance(destination, pathlib.Path):
        destination_path = destination

    destination_path.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
    if source_path.is_dir():
        destination_path = destination_path.joinpath(source_path.name)
        destination_path.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

    for item in os.listdir(source_path):
        s: pathlib.Path = source_path / item
        d: pathlib.Path = destination_path / item
        if s.is_dir():
            copy_dir(s, d)
        else:
            shutil.copy2(str(s), str(d))