How do I move a file in Python?

by

os.rename(), os.replace(), or shutil.move()

All employ the same syntax:

import os
import shutil

os.rename("path/to/current/file.foo", "path/to/new/destination/for/file.foo")
os.replace("path/to/current/file.foo", "path/to/new/destination/for/file.foo")
shutil.move("path/to/current/file.foo", "path/to/new/destination/for/file.foo")
  • The filename ("file.foo") must be included in both the source and destination arguments. If it differs between the two, the file will be renamed as well as moved.
  • The directory within which the new file is being created must already exist.
  • On Windows, a file with that name must not exist or an exception will be raised, but os.replace() will silently replace a file even in that occurrence.
  • shutil.move simply calls os.rename in most cases. However, if the destination is on a different disk than the source, it will instead copy and then delete the source file.

More Related Contents:

  1. How to move a file in Python?
  2. How to populate Objects in a an existing file [closed]
  3. How do you append to a file?
  4. How to read specific lines from a file (by line number)?
  5. How to modify a text file?
  6. Confused by python file mode “w+”
  7. Get last n lines of a file, similar to tail
  8. Importing variables from another file?
  9. FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory [duplicate]
  10. What is the perfect counterpart in Python for “while not EOF”
  11. How to delete the contents of a folder?
  12. Read and overwrite a file in Python
  13. How to implement a pythonic equivalent of tail -F?
  14. replacing text in a file with Python
  15. How do I append to a file?
  16. .write not working in Python
  17. How do I call a function from another .py file?
  18. Most efficient way to search the last X lines of a file?
  19. How to save a list to a file and read it as a list type?
  20. os.walk without digging into directories below
  21. Reading files in a particular order in python
  22. Check if object is file-like in Python
  23. Python Random Access File
  24. How to read one single line of csv data in Python?
  25. Best method for reading newline delimited files and discarding the newlines?
  26. How to safely write to a file?
  27. How to delete a specific line in a text file using Python?
  28. Mixing files and loops
  29. python write string directly to tarfile
  30. Reading a File Line by Line in Python [duplicate]

Leave a Comment