all Python 3shutilterm

shutil

module

High-level operations on files and directory trees: copying, moving, deleting, archives.

Syntax

import shutil

os and pathlib handle one file or one directory, while shutil works on whole trees: copytree, rmtree, move, make_archive. copy carries over contents and permissions, copy2 also keeps metadata such as modification time; neither copies the owner or ACLs. rmtree deletes with no trash and no confirmation, and which looks a program up on PATH the way a shell does.

Examples

import shutil, pathlib
pathlib.Path('src').mkdir()
pathlib.Path('src/a.txt').write_text('hi')
shutil.copytree('src', 'dst')
print(pathlib.Path('dst/a.txt').read_text())  # → hi
shutil.rmtree('src')
print(pathlib.Path('src').exists())  # → False

See also

Common errors

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