Deleting all files in a directory with Python

user_242734 0
Viewed 275826

I want to delete all files with the extension .bak in a directory. How can I do that in Python?

file-io python
7 Answers

Via os.listdir and os.remove:

import os

filelist = [ f for f in os.listdir(mydir) if f.endswith(".bak") ]
for f in filelist:
    os.remove(os.path.join(mydir, f))

Using only a single loop:

for f in os.listdir(mydir):
    if not f.endswith(".bak"):
        continue
    os.remove(os.path.join(mydir, f))

Or via glob.glob:

import glob, os, os.path

filelist = glob.glob(os.path.join(mydir, "*.bak"))
for f in filelist:
    os.remove(f)

Be sure to be in the correct directory, eventually using os.chdir.

user_893910

Use os.chdir to change directory . Use glob.glob to generate a list of file names which end it '.bak'. The elements of the list are just strings.

Then you could use os.unlink to remove the files. (PS. os.unlink and os.remove are synonyms for the same function.)

#!/usr/bin/env python
import glob
import os
directory='/path/to/dir'
os.chdir(directory)
files=glob.glob('*.bak')
for filename in files:
    os.unlink(filename)
user_1905970

you can create a function. Add maxdepth as you like for traversing subdirectories.

def findNremove(path,pattern,maxdepth=1):
    cpath=path.count(os.sep)
    for r,d,f in os.walk(path):
        if r.count(os.sep) - cpath <maxdepth:
            for files in f:
                if files.endswith(pattern):
                    try:
                        print "Removing %s" % (os.path.join(r,files))
                        #os.remove(os.path.join(r,files))
                    except Exception,e:
                        print e
                    else:
                        print "%s removed" % (os.path.join(r,files))

path=os.path.join("/home","dir1","dir2")
findNremove(path,".bak")
user_1315270
Ignacio_Vazquez-Abrams_208620

I realize this is old; however, here would be how to do so using just the os module...

def purgedir(parent):
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(parent):                                      
        for item in files:
            # Delete subordinate files                                                 
            filespec = os.path.join(root, item)
            if filespec.endswith('.bak'):
                os.unlink(filespec)
        for item in dirs:
            # Recursively perform this operation for subordinate directories   
            purgedir(os.path.join(root, item))
user_53605330
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