Deleting all files in a directory with Python

Question

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

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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)

Answer 3

In Python 3.5, os.scandir is better if you need to check for file attributes or type - see os.DirEntry for properties of the object that's returned by the function.

import os 

for file in os.scandir(path):
    if file.name.endswith(".bak"):
        os.unlink(file.path)

This also doesn't require changing directories since each DirEntry already includes the full path to the file.

Answer 4

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")

Answer 5

First glob them, then unlink.

Answer 6

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))

Answer 7

On Linux and macOS you can run simple command to the shell:

subprocess.run('rm /tmp/*.bak', shell=True)