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Access denied from "shutil.rmtree('dir_path')", despite emptying dir_path's contents [duplicate]

How can I delete the contents of a local folder in Python?
The current project is for Windows, but I would like to see *nix also.

import os, shutil
folder = '/path/to/folder'
for filename in os.listdir(folder):
file_path = os.path.join(folder, filename)
try:
if os.path.isfile(file_path) or os.path.islink(file_path):
os.unlink(file_path)
elif os.path.isdir(file_path):
shutil.rmtree(file_path)
except Exception as e:
print('Failed to delete %s. Reason: %s' % (file_path, e))

You can simply do this:
import os
import glob
files = glob.glob('/YOUR/PATH/*')
for f in files:
os.remove(f)
You can of course use an other filter in you path, for example : /YOU/PATH/*.txt for removing all text files in a directory.

You can delete the folder itself, as well as all its contents, using shutil.rmtree:
import shutil
shutil.rmtree('/path/to/folder')
shutil.rmtree(path, ignore_errors=False, onerror=None)
Delete an entire directory tree; path must point to a directory (but not a symbolic link to a directory). If ignore_errors is true, errors resulting from failed removals will be ignored; if false or omitted, such errors are handled by calling a handler specified by onerror or, if that is omitted, they raise an exception.

Expanding on mhawke's answer this is what I've implemented. It removes all the content of a folder but not the folder itself. Tested on Linux with files, folders and symbolic links, should work on Windows as well.
import os
import shutil
for root, dirs, files in os.walk('/path/to/folder'):
for f in files:
os.unlink(os.path.join(root, f))
for d in dirs:
shutil.rmtree(os.path.join(root, d))

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the awesome pathlib to do this job.
If you only want to remove files in a directory it can be a oneliner
from pathlib import Path
[f.unlink() for f in Path("/path/to/folder").glob("*") if f.is_file()]
To also recursively remove directories you can write something like this:
from pathlib import Path
from shutil import rmtree
for path in Path("/path/to/folder").glob("**/*"):
if path.is_file():
path.unlink()
elif path.is_dir():
rmtree(path)

Using rmtree and recreating the folder could work, but I have run into errors when deleting and immediately recreating folders on network drives.
The proposed solution using walk does not work as it uses rmtree to remove folders and then may attempt to use os.unlink on the files that were previously in those folders. This causes an error.
The posted glob solution will also attempt to delete non-empty folders, causing errors.
I suggest you use:
folder_path = '/path/to/folder'
for file_object in os.listdir(folder_path):
file_object_path = os.path.join(folder_path, file_object)
if os.path.isfile(file_object_path) or os.path.islink(file_object_path):
os.unlink(file_object_path)
else:
shutil.rmtree(file_object_path)

This:
removes all symbolic links
dead links
links to directories
links to files
removes subdirectories
does not remove the parent directory
Code:
for filename in os.listdir(dirpath):
filepath = os.path.join(dirpath, filename)
try:
shutil.rmtree(filepath)
except OSError:
os.remove(filepath)
As many other answers, this does not try to adjust permissions to enable removal of files/directories.

Using os.scandir and context manager protocol in Python 3.6+:
import os
import shutil
with os.scandir(target_dir) as entries:
for entry in entries:
if entry.is_dir() and not entry.is_symlink():
shutil.rmtree(entry.path)
else:
os.remove(entry.path)
Earlier versions of Python:
import os
import shutil
# Gather directory contents
contents = [os.path.join(target_dir, i) for i in os.listdir(target_dir)]
# Iterate and remove each item in the appropriate manner
[shutil.rmtree(i) if os.path.isdir(i) and not os.path.islink(i) else os.remove(i) for i in contents]

Notes: in case someone down voted my answer, I have something to explain here.
Everyone likes short 'n' simple answers. However, sometimes the reality is not so simple.
Back to my answer. I know shutil.rmtree() could be used to delete a directory tree. I've used it many times in my own projects. But you must realize that the directory itself will also be deleted by shutil.rmtree(). While this might be acceptable for some, it's not a valid answer for deleting the contents of a folder (without side effects).
I'll show you an example of the side effects. Suppose that you have a directory with customized owner and mode bits, where there are a lot of contents. Then you delete it with shutil.rmtree() and rebuild it with os.mkdir(). And you'll get an empty directory with default (inherited) owner and mode bits instead. While you might have the privilege to delete the contents and even the directory, you might not be able to set back the original owner and mode bits on the directory (e.g. you're not a superuser).
Finally, be patient and read the code. It's long and ugly (in sight), but proven to be reliable and efficient (in use).
Here's a long and ugly, but reliable and efficient solution.
It resolves a few problems which are not addressed by the other answerers:
It correctly handles symbolic links, including not calling shutil.rmtree() on a symbolic link (which will pass the os.path.isdir() test if it links to a directory; even the result of os.walk() contains symbolic linked directories as well).
It handles read-only files nicely.
Here's the code (the only useful function is clear_dir()):
import os
import stat
import shutil
# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1889597/deleting-directory-in-python
def _remove_readonly(fn, path_, excinfo):
# Handle read-only files and directories
if fn is os.rmdir:
os.chmod(path_, stat.S_IWRITE)
os.rmdir(path_)
elif fn is os.remove:
os.lchmod(path_, stat.S_IWRITE)
os.remove(path_)
def force_remove_file_or_symlink(path_):
try:
os.remove(path_)
except OSError:
os.lchmod(path_, stat.S_IWRITE)
os.remove(path_)
# Code from shutil.rmtree()
def is_regular_dir(path_):
try:
mode = os.lstat(path_).st_mode
except os.error:
mode = 0
return stat.S_ISDIR(mode)
def clear_dir(path_):
if is_regular_dir(path_):
# Given path is a directory, clear its content
for name in os.listdir(path_):
fullpath = os.path.join(path_, name)
if is_regular_dir(fullpath):
shutil.rmtree(fullpath, onerror=_remove_readonly)
else:
force_remove_file_or_symlink(fullpath)
else:
# Given path is a file or a symlink.
# Raise an exception here to avoid accidentally clearing the content
# of a symbolic linked directory.
raise OSError("Cannot call clear_dir() on a symbolic link")

As a oneliner:
import os
# Python 2.7
map( os.unlink, (os.path.join( mydir,f) for f in os.listdir(mydir)) )
# Python 3+
list( map( os.unlink, (os.path.join( mydir,f) for f in os.listdir(mydir)) ) )
A more robust solution accounting for files and directories as well would be (2.7):
def rm(f):
if os.path.isdir(f): return os.rmdir(f)
if os.path.isfile(f): return os.unlink(f)
raise TypeError, 'must be either file or directory'
map( rm, (os.path.join( mydir,f) for f in os.listdir(mydir)) )

I used to solve the problem this way:
import shutil
import os
shutil.rmtree(dirpath)
os.mkdir(dirpath)

To delete all files inside a folder a I use:
import os
for i in os.listdir():
os.remove(i)

To delete all the files inside the directory as well as its sub-directories, without removing the folders themselves, simply do this:
import os
mypath = "my_folder" #Enter your path here
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(mypath, topdown=False):
for file in files:
os.remove(os.path.join(root, file))
# Add this block to remove folders
for dir in dirs:
os.rmdir(os.path.join(root, dir))
# Add this line to remove the root folder at the end
os.rmdir(mypath)

You might be better off using os.walk() for this.
os.listdir() doesn't distinguish files from directories and you will quickly get into trouble trying to unlink these. There is a good example of using os.walk() to recursively remove a directory here, and hints on how to adapt it to your circumstances.

If you are using a *nix system, why not leverage the system command?
import os
path = 'folder/to/clean'
os.system('rm -rf %s/*' % path)

I konw it's an old thread but I have found something interesting from the official site of python. Just for sharing another idea for removing of all contents in a directory. Because I have some problems of authorization when using shutil.rmtree() and I don't want to remove the directory and recreate it. The address original is http://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html#os.walk. Hope that could help someone.
def emptydir(top):
if(top == '/' or top == "\\"): return
else:
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(top, topdown=False):
for name in files:
os.remove(os.path.join(root, name))
for name in dirs:
os.rmdir(os.path.join(root, name))

I had to remove files from 3 separate folders inside a single parent directory:
directory
folderA
file1
folderB
file2
folderC
file3
This simple code did the trick for me: (I'm on Unix)
import os
import glob
folders = glob.glob('./path/to/parentdir/*')
for fo in folders:
file = glob.glob(f'{fo}/*')
for f in file:
os.remove(f)
Hope this helps.

Yet Another Solution:
import sh
sh.rm(sh.glob('/path/to/folder/*'))

Well, I think this code is working. It will not delete the folder and you can use this code to delete files having the particular extension.
import os
import glob
files = glob.glob(r'path/*')
for items in files:
os.remove(items)

Pretty intuitive way of doing it:
import shutil, os
def remove_folder_contents(path):
shutil.rmtree(path)
os.makedirs(path)
remove_folder_contents('/path/to/folder')

use this function
import os
import glob
def truncate(path):
files = glob.glob(path+'/*.*')
for f in files:
os.remove(f)
truncate('/my/path')

Use the method bellow to remove the contents of a directory, not the directory itself:
import os
import shutil
def remove_contents(path):
for c in os.listdir(path):
full_path = os.path.join(path, c)
if os.path.isfile(full_path):
os.remove(full_path)
else:
shutil.rmtree(full_path)

Answer for a limited, specific situation:
assuming you want to delete the files while maintainig the subfolders tree, you could use a recursive algorithm:
import os
def recursively_remove_files(f):
if os.path.isfile(f):
os.unlink(f)
elif os.path.isdir(f):
for fi in os.listdir(f):
recursively_remove_files(os.path.join(f, fi))
recursively_remove_files(my_directory)
Maybe slightly off-topic, but I think many would find it useful

I resolved the issue with rmtree makedirs by adding time.sleep() between:
if os.path.isdir(folder_location):
shutil.rmtree(folder_location)
time.sleep(.5)
os.makedirs(folder_location, 0o777)

the easiest way to delete all files in a folder/remove all files
import os
files = os.listdir(yourFilePath)
for f in files:
os.remove(yourFilePath + f)

This should do the trick just using the OS module to list and then remove!
import os
DIR = os.list('Folder')
for i in range(len(DIR)):
os.remove('Folder'+chr(92)+i)
Worked for me, any problems let me know!

Is there one python function that removes files AND directories indiscriminately? [duplicate]

How can I delete a file or folder?

os.remove() removes a file.
os.rmdir() removes an empty directory.
shutil.rmtree() deletes a directory and all its contents.
Path objects from the Python 3.4+ pathlib module also expose these instance methods:
pathlib.Path.unlink() removes a file or symbolic link.
pathlib.Path.rmdir() removes an empty directory.

Python syntax to delete a file
import os
os.remove("/tmp/<file_name>.txt")
or
import os
os.unlink("/tmp/<file_name>.txt")
or
pathlib Library for Python version >= 3.4
file_to_rem = pathlib.Path("/tmp/<file_name>.txt")
file_to_rem.unlink()
Path.unlink(missing_ok=False)
Unlink method used to remove the file or the symbolik link.
If missing_ok is false (the default), FileNotFoundError is raised if the path does not exist.
If missing_ok is true, FileNotFoundError exceptions will be ignored (same behavior as the POSIX rm -f command).
Changed in version 3.8: The missing_ok parameter was added.
Best practice
First, check if the file or folder exists and then delete it. You can achieve this in two ways:
os.path.isfile("/path/to/file")
Use exception handling.
EXAMPLE for os.path.isfile
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
myfile = "/tmp/foo.txt"
# If file exists, delete it.
if os.path.isfile(myfile):
os.remove(myfile)
else:
# If it fails, inform the user.
print("Error: %s file not found" % myfile)
Exception Handling
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
# Get input.
myfile = raw_input("Enter file name to delete: ")
# Try to delete the file.
try:
os.remove(myfile)
except OSError as e:
# If it fails, inform the user.
print("Error: %s - %s." % (e.filename, e.strerror))
Respective output
Enter file name to delete : demo.txt
Error: demo.txt - No such file or directory.
Enter file name to delete : rrr.txt
Error: rrr.txt - Operation not permitted.
Enter file name to delete : foo.txt
Python syntax to delete a folder
shutil.rmtree()
Example for shutil.rmtree()
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
import sys
import shutil
# Get directory name
mydir = raw_input("Enter directory name: ")
# Try to remove the tree; if it fails, throw an error using try...except.
try:
shutil.rmtree(mydir)
except OSError as e:
print("Error: %s - %s." % (e.filename, e.strerror))

Use
shutil.rmtree(path[, ignore_errors[, onerror]])
(See complete documentation on shutil) and/or
os.remove
and
os.rmdir
(Complete documentation on os.)

Here is a robust function that uses both os.remove and shutil.rmtree:
def remove(path):
""" param <path> could either be relative or absolute. """
if os.path.isfile(path) or os.path.islink(path):
os.remove(path) # remove the file
elif os.path.isdir(path):
shutil.rmtree(path) # remove dir and all contains
else:
raise ValueError("file {} is not a file or dir.".format(path))

You can use the built-in pathlib module (requires Python 3.4+, but there are backports for older versions on PyPI: pathlib, pathlib2).
To remove a file there is the unlink method:
import pathlib
path = pathlib.Path(name_of_file)
path.unlink()
Or the rmdir method to remove an empty folder:
import pathlib
path = pathlib.Path(name_of_folder)
path.rmdir()

Deleting a file or folder in Python
There are multiple ways to Delete a File in Python but the best ways are the following:
os.remove() removes a file.
os.unlink() removes a file. it is a Unix name of remove() method.
shutil.rmtree() deletes a directory and all its contents.
pathlib.Path.unlink() deletes a single file The pathlib module is available in Python 3.4 and above.
os.remove()
Example 1: Basic Example to Remove a File Using os.remove() Method.
import os
os.remove("test_file.txt")
print("File removed successfully")
Example 2: Checking if File Exists using os.path.isfile and Deleting it With os.remove
import os
#checking if file exist or not
if(os.path.isfile("test.txt")):
#os.remove() function to remove the file
os.remove("test.txt")
#Printing the confirmation message of deletion
print("File Deleted successfully")
else:
print("File does not exist")
#Showing the message instead of throwig an error
Example 3: Python Program to Delete all files with a specific extension
import os
from os import listdir
my_path = 'C:\Python Pool\Test\'
for file_name in listdir(my_path):
if file_name.endswith('.txt'):
os.remove(my_path + file_name)
Example 4: Python Program to Delete All Files Inside a Folder
To delete all files inside a particular directory, you simply have to use the * symbol as the pattern string.
#Importing os and glob modules
import os, glob
#Loop Through the folder projects all files and deleting them one by one
for file in glob.glob("pythonpool/*"):
os.remove(file)
print("Deleted " + str(file))
os.unlink()
os.unlink() is an alias or another name of os.remove() . As in the Unix OS remove is also known as unlink.
Note: All the functionalities and syntax is the same of os.unlink() and os.remove(). Both of them are used to delete the Python file path.
Both are methods in the os module in Python’s standard libraries which performs the deletion function.
shutil.rmtree()
Example 1: Python Program to Delete a File Using shutil.rmtree()
import shutil
import os
# location
location = "E:/Projects/PythonPool/"
# directory
dir = "Test"
# path
path = os.path.join(location, dir)
# removing directory
shutil.rmtree(path)
Example 2: Python Program to Delete a File Using shutil.rmtree()
import shutil
import os
location = "E:/Projects/PythonPool/"
dir = "Test"
path = os.path.join(location, dir)
shutil.rmtree(path)
pathlib.Path.rmdir() to remove Empty Directory
Pathlib module provides different ways to interact with your files. Rmdir is one of the path functions which allows you to delete an empty folder. Firstly, you need to select the Path() for the directory, and then calling rmdir() method will check the folder size. If it’s empty, it’ll delete it.
This is a good way to deleting empty folders without any fear of losing actual data.
from pathlib import Path
q = Path('foldername')
q.rmdir()

How do I delete a file or folder in Python?
For Python 3, to remove the file and directory individually, use the unlink and rmdir Path object methods respectively:
from pathlib import Path
dir_path = Path.home() / 'directory'
file_path = dir_path / 'file'
file_path.unlink() # remove file
dir_path.rmdir() # remove directory
Note that you can also use relative paths with Path objects, and you can check your current working directory with Path.cwd.
For removing individual files and directories in Python 2, see the section so labeled below.
To remove a directory with contents, use shutil.rmtree, and note that this is available in Python 2 and 3:
from shutil import rmtree
rmtree(dir_path)
Demonstration
New in Python 3.4 is the Path object.
Let's use one to create a directory and file to demonstrate usage. Note that we use the / to join the parts of the path, this works around issues between operating systems and issues from using backslashes on Windows (where you'd need to either double up your backslashes like \\ or use raw strings, like r"foo\bar"):
from pathlib import Path
# .home() is new in 3.5, otherwise use os.path.expanduser('~')
directory_path = Path.home() / 'directory'
directory_path.mkdir()
file_path = directory_path / 'file'
file_path.touch()
and now:
>>> file_path.is_file()
True
Now let's delete them. First the file:
>>> file_path.unlink() # remove file
>>> file_path.is_file()
False
>>> file_path.exists()
False
We can use globbing to remove multiple files - first let's create a few files for this:
>>> (directory_path / 'foo.my').touch()
>>> (directory_path / 'bar.my').touch()
Then just iterate over the glob pattern:
>>> for each_file_path in directory_path.glob('*.my'):
... print(f'removing {each_file_path}')
... each_file_path.unlink()
...
removing ~/directory/foo.my
removing ~/directory/bar.my
Now, demonstrating removing the directory:
>>> directory_path.rmdir() # remove directory
>>> directory_path.is_dir()
False
>>> directory_path.exists()
False
What if we want to remove a directory and everything in it?
For this use-case, use shutil.rmtree
Let's recreate our directory and file:
file_path.parent.mkdir()
file_path.touch()
and note that rmdir fails unless it's empty, which is why rmtree is so convenient:
>>> directory_path.rmdir()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "~/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/pathlib.py", line 1270, in rmdir
self._accessor.rmdir(self)
File "~/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/pathlib.py", line 387, in wrapped
return strfunc(str(pathobj), *args)
OSError: [Errno 39] Directory not empty: '/home/username/directory'
Now, import rmtree and pass the directory to the funtion:
from shutil import rmtree
rmtree(directory_path) # remove everything
and we can see the whole thing has been removed:
>>> directory_path.exists()
False
Python 2
If you're on Python 2, there's a backport of the pathlib module called pathlib2, which can be installed with pip:
$ pip install pathlib2
And then you can alias the library to pathlib
import pathlib2 as pathlib
Or just directly import the Path object (as demonstrated here):
from pathlib2 import Path
If that's too much, you can remove files with os.remove or os.unlink
from os import unlink, remove
from os.path import join, expanduser
remove(join(expanduser('~'), 'directory/file'))
or
unlink(join(expanduser('~'), 'directory/file'))
and you can remove directories with os.rmdir:
from os import rmdir
rmdir(join(expanduser('~'), 'directory'))
Note that there is also a os.removedirs - it only removes empty directories recursively, but it may suit your use-case.

This is my function for deleting dirs. The "path" requires the full pathname.
import os
def rm_dir(path):
cwd = os.getcwd()
if not os.path.exists(os.path.join(cwd, path)):
return False
os.chdir(os.path.join(cwd, path))
for file in os.listdir():
print("file = " + file)
os.remove(file)
print(cwd)
os.chdir(cwd)
os.rmdir(os.path.join(cwd, path))

shutil.rmtree is the asynchronous function,
so if you want to check when it complete, you can use while...loop
import os
import shutil
shutil.rmtree(path)
while os.path.exists(path):
pass
print('done')

import os
folder = '/Path/to/yourDir/'
fileList = os.listdir(folder)
for f in fileList:
filePath = folder + '/'+f
if os.path.isfile(filePath):
os.remove(filePath)
elif os.path.isdir(filePath):
newFileList = os.listdir(filePath)
for f1 in newFileList:
insideFilePath = filePath + '/' + f1
if os.path.isfile(insideFilePath):
os.remove(insideFilePath)

For deleting files:
os.unlink(path, *, dir_fd=None)
or
os.remove(path, *, dir_fd=None)
Both functions are semantically same. This functions removes (deletes) the file path. If path is not a file and it is directory, then exception is raised.
For deleting folders:
shutil.rmtree(path, ignore_errors=False, onerror=None)
or
os.rmdir(path, *, dir_fd=None)
In order to remove whole directory trees, shutil.rmtree() can be used. os.rmdir only works when the directory is empty and exists.
For deleting folders recursively towards parent:
os.removedirs(name)
It remove every empty parent directory with self until parent which has some content
ex. os.removedirs('abc/xyz/pqr') will remove the directories by order 'abc/xyz/pqr', 'abc/xyz' and 'abc' if they are empty.
For more info check official doc: os.unlink , os.remove, os.rmdir , shutil.rmtree, os.removedirs

To remove all files in folder
import os
import glob
files = glob.glob(os.path.join('path/to/folder/*'))
files = glob.glob(os.path.join('path/to/folder/*.csv')) // It will give all csv files in folder
for file in files:
os.remove(file)
To remove all folders in a directory
from shutil import rmtree
import os
// os.path.join() # current working directory.
for dirct in os.listdir(os.path.join('path/to/folder')):
rmtree(os.path.join('path/to/folder',dirct))

To avoid the TOCTOU issue highlighted by Éric Araujo's comment, you can catch an exception to call the correct method:
def remove_file_or_dir(path: str) -> None:
""" Remove a file or directory """
try:
shutil.rmtree(path)
except NotADirectoryError:
os.remove(path)
Since shutil.rmtree() will only remove directories and os.remove() or os.unlink() will only remove files.

My personal preference is to work with pathlib objects - it offers a more pythonic and less error-prone way to interact with the filesystem, especially if You develop cross-platform code.
In that case, You might use pathlib3x - it offers a backport of the latest (at the date of writing this answer Python 3.10.a0) Python pathlib for Python 3.6 or newer, and a few additional functions like "copy", "copy2", "copytree", "rmtree" etc ...
It also wraps shutil.rmtree:
$> python -m pip install pathlib3x
$> python
>>> import pathlib3x as pathlib
# delete a directory tree
>>> my_dir_to_delete=pathlib.Path('c:/temp/some_dir')
>>> my_dir_to_delete.rmtree(ignore_errors=True)
# delete a file
>>> my_file_to_delete=pathlib.Path('c:/temp/some_file.txt')
>>> my_file_to_delete.unlink(missing_ok=True)
you can find it on github or PyPi
Disclaimer: I'm the author of the pathlib3x library.

I recommend using subprocess if writing a beautiful and readable code is your cup of tea:
import subprocess
subprocess.Popen("rm -r my_dir", shell=True)
And if you are not a software engineer, then maybe consider using Jupyter; you can simply type bash commands:
!rm -r my_dir
Traditionally, you use shutil:
import shutil
shutil.rmtree(my_dir)

How to move from one directory to another and delete only '.html' files in python?

I attended an interview and they asked me to write a script to move from one directory to another and delete only the .html files.
Now I tried to do this at first using os.remove() . Following is the code:
def rm_files():
import os
from os import path
folder='J:\\Test\\'
for files in os.listdir(folder):
file_path=path.join(folder,files)
os.remove(file_path)
The problem I am facing here is that I cannot figure out how to delete only .html files in my directory
Then I tried using glob. Following is the code:
def rm_files1():
import os
import glob
files=glob.glob('J:\\Test\\*.html')
for f in files:
os.remove(f)
Using glob I can delete the .html files but still I cannot figure out how to implement the logic of moving from one directory to another.
And along with that can someone please help me figure out how to delete a specific file type using os.remove() ?
Thank you.

Either of these methods should work. For the first way, you could just string.endswith(suffix) like so:
def rm_files():
import os
from os import path
folder='J:\\Test\\'
for files in os.listdir(folder):
file_path=path.join(folder,files)
if file_path.endswith(".html"):
os.remove(file_path)
Or if you prefer glob, moving directories is fairly straightforward: os.chdir(path) like this:
def rm_files1():
import os
os.chdir('J:\\Test')
import glob
files=glob.glob('J:\\Test\\*.html')
for f in files:
os.remove(f)
Though it seems unnecessary since glob is taking an absolute path anyway.

Your problem can be described in the following steps.
move to specific directory. This can be done using os.chdir()
grab list of all *.html files. Use glob.glob('*.html')
remove the files. use os.remove()
Putting it all together:
import os
import glob
import sys
def remove_html_files(path_name):
# move to desired path, if it exists
if os.path.exists(path_name):
os.chdir(path_name)
else:
print('invalid path')
sys.exit(1)
# grab list of all html files in current directory
file_list = glob.glob('*.html')
#delete files
for f in file_list:
os.remove(f)
#output messaage
print('deleted '+ str(len(file_list))+' files in folder' + path_name)
# call the function
remove_html_files(path_name)

To remove all html files in a directory with os.remove() you can do like this using endswith() function
import sys
import os
from os import listdir
directory = "J:\\Test\\"
test = os.listdir( directory )
for item in test:
if item.endswith(".html"):
os.remove( os.path.join( directory, item ) )

How can I delete a file or folder in Python?

How can I delete a file or folder?

os.remove() removes a file.
os.rmdir() removes an empty directory.
shutil.rmtree() deletes a directory and all its contents.
Path objects from the Python 3.4+ pathlib module also expose these instance methods:
pathlib.Path.unlink() removes a file or symbolic link.
pathlib.Path.rmdir() removes an empty directory.

Python syntax to delete a file
import os
os.remove("/tmp/<file_name>.txt")
or
import os
os.unlink("/tmp/<file_name>.txt")
or
pathlib Library for Python version >= 3.4
file_to_rem = pathlib.Path("/tmp/<file_name>.txt")
file_to_rem.unlink()
Path.unlink(missing_ok=False)
Unlink method used to remove the file or the symbolik link.
If missing_ok is false (the default), FileNotFoundError is raised if the path does not exist.
If missing_ok is true, FileNotFoundError exceptions will be ignored (same behavior as the POSIX rm -f command).
Changed in version 3.8: The missing_ok parameter was added.
Best practice
First, check if the file or folder exists and then delete it. You can achieve this in two ways:
os.path.isfile("/path/to/file")
Use exception handling.
EXAMPLE for os.path.isfile
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
myfile = "/tmp/foo.txt"
# If file exists, delete it.
if os.path.isfile(myfile):
os.remove(myfile)
else:
# If it fails, inform the user.
print("Error: %s file not found" % myfile)
Exception Handling
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
# Get input.
myfile = raw_input("Enter file name to delete: ")
# Try to delete the file.
try:
os.remove(myfile)
except OSError as e:
# If it fails, inform the user.
print("Error: %s - %s." % (e.filename, e.strerror))
Respective output
Enter file name to delete : demo.txt
Error: demo.txt - No such file or directory.
Enter file name to delete : rrr.txt
Error: rrr.txt - Operation not permitted.
Enter file name to delete : foo.txt
Python syntax to delete a folder
shutil.rmtree()
Example for shutil.rmtree()
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
import sys
import shutil
# Get directory name
mydir = raw_input("Enter directory name: ")
# Try to remove the tree; if it fails, throw an error using try...except.
try:
shutil.rmtree(mydir)
except OSError as e:
print("Error: %s - %s." % (e.filename, e.strerror))

Use
shutil.rmtree(path[, ignore_errors[, onerror]])
(See complete documentation on shutil) and/or
os.remove
and
os.rmdir
(Complete documentation on os.)

Here is a robust function that uses both os.remove and shutil.rmtree:
def remove(path):
""" param <path> could either be relative or absolute. """
if os.path.isfile(path) or os.path.islink(path):
os.remove(path) # remove the file
elif os.path.isdir(path):
shutil.rmtree(path) # remove dir and all contains
else:
raise ValueError("file {} is not a file or dir.".format(path))

You can use the built-in pathlib module (requires Python 3.4+, but there are backports for older versions on PyPI: pathlib, pathlib2).
To remove a file there is the unlink method:
import pathlib
path = pathlib.Path(name_of_file)
path.unlink()
Or the rmdir method to remove an empty folder:
import pathlib
path = pathlib.Path(name_of_folder)
path.rmdir()

Deleting a file or folder in Python
There are multiple ways to Delete a File in Python but the best ways are the following:
os.remove() removes a file.
os.unlink() removes a file. it is a Unix name of remove() method.
shutil.rmtree() deletes a directory and all its contents.
pathlib.Path.unlink() deletes a single file The pathlib module is available in Python 3.4 and above.
os.remove()
Example 1: Basic Example to Remove a File Using os.remove() Method.
import os
os.remove("test_file.txt")
print("File removed successfully")
Example 2: Checking if File Exists using os.path.isfile and Deleting it With os.remove
import os
#checking if file exist or not
if(os.path.isfile("test.txt")):
#os.remove() function to remove the file
os.remove("test.txt")
#Printing the confirmation message of deletion
print("File Deleted successfully")
else:
print("File does not exist")
#Showing the message instead of throwig an error
Example 3: Python Program to Delete all files with a specific extension
import os
from os import listdir
my_path = 'C:\Python Pool\Test\'
for file_name in listdir(my_path):
if file_name.endswith('.txt'):
os.remove(my_path + file_name)
Example 4: Python Program to Delete All Files Inside a Folder
To delete all files inside a particular directory, you simply have to use the * symbol as the pattern string.
#Importing os and glob modules
import os, glob
#Loop Through the folder projects all files and deleting them one by one
for file in glob.glob("pythonpool/*"):
os.remove(file)
print("Deleted " + str(file))
os.unlink()
os.unlink() is an alias or another name of os.remove() . As in the Unix OS remove is also known as unlink.
Note: All the functionalities and syntax is the same of os.unlink() and os.remove(). Both of them are used to delete the Python file path.
Both are methods in the os module in Python’s standard libraries which performs the deletion function.
shutil.rmtree()
Example 1: Python Program to Delete a File Using shutil.rmtree()
import shutil
import os
# location
location = "E:/Projects/PythonPool/"
# directory
dir = "Test"
# path
path = os.path.join(location, dir)
# removing directory
shutil.rmtree(path)
Example 2: Python Program to Delete a File Using shutil.rmtree()
import shutil
import os
location = "E:/Projects/PythonPool/"
dir = "Test"
path = os.path.join(location, dir)
shutil.rmtree(path)
pathlib.Path.rmdir() to remove Empty Directory
Pathlib module provides different ways to interact with your files. Rmdir is one of the path functions which allows you to delete an empty folder. Firstly, you need to select the Path() for the directory, and then calling rmdir() method will check the folder size. If it’s empty, it’ll delete it.
This is a good way to deleting empty folders without any fear of losing actual data.
from pathlib import Path
q = Path('foldername')
q.rmdir()

How do I delete a file or folder in Python?
For Python 3, to remove the file and directory individually, use the unlink and rmdir Path object methods respectively:
from pathlib import Path
dir_path = Path.home() / 'directory'
file_path = dir_path / 'file'
file_path.unlink() # remove file
dir_path.rmdir() # remove directory
Note that you can also use relative paths with Path objects, and you can check your current working directory with Path.cwd.
For removing individual files and directories in Python 2, see the section so labeled below.
To remove a directory with contents, use shutil.rmtree, and note that this is available in Python 2 and 3:
from shutil import rmtree
rmtree(dir_path)
Demonstration
New in Python 3.4 is the Path object.
Let's use one to create a directory and file to demonstrate usage. Note that we use the / to join the parts of the path, this works around issues between operating systems and issues from using backslashes on Windows (where you'd need to either double up your backslashes like \\ or use raw strings, like r"foo\bar"):
from pathlib import Path
# .home() is new in 3.5, otherwise use os.path.expanduser('~')
directory_path = Path.home() / 'directory'
directory_path.mkdir()
file_path = directory_path / 'file'
file_path.touch()
and now:
>>> file_path.is_file()
True
Now let's delete them. First the file:
>>> file_path.unlink() # remove file
>>> file_path.is_file()
False
>>> file_path.exists()
False
We can use globbing to remove multiple files - first let's create a few files for this:
>>> (directory_path / 'foo.my').touch()
>>> (directory_path / 'bar.my').touch()
Then just iterate over the glob pattern:
>>> for each_file_path in directory_path.glob('*.my'):
... print(f'removing {each_file_path}')
... each_file_path.unlink()
...
removing ~/directory/foo.my
removing ~/directory/bar.my
Now, demonstrating removing the directory:
>>> directory_path.rmdir() # remove directory
>>> directory_path.is_dir()
False
>>> directory_path.exists()
False
What if we want to remove a directory and everything in it?
For this use-case, use shutil.rmtree
Let's recreate our directory and file:
file_path.parent.mkdir()
file_path.touch()
and note that rmdir fails unless it's empty, which is why rmtree is so convenient:
>>> directory_path.rmdir()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "~/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/pathlib.py", line 1270, in rmdir
self._accessor.rmdir(self)
File "~/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/pathlib.py", line 387, in wrapped
return strfunc(str(pathobj), *args)
OSError: [Errno 39] Directory not empty: '/home/username/directory'
Now, import rmtree and pass the directory to the funtion:
from shutil import rmtree
rmtree(directory_path) # remove everything
and we can see the whole thing has been removed:
>>> directory_path.exists()
False
Python 2
If you're on Python 2, there's a backport of the pathlib module called pathlib2, which can be installed with pip:
$ pip install pathlib2
And then you can alias the library to pathlib
import pathlib2 as pathlib
Or just directly import the Path object (as demonstrated here):
from pathlib2 import Path
If that's too much, you can remove files with os.remove or os.unlink
from os import unlink, remove
from os.path import join, expanduser
remove(join(expanduser('~'), 'directory/file'))
or
unlink(join(expanduser('~'), 'directory/file'))
and you can remove directories with os.rmdir:
from os import rmdir
rmdir(join(expanduser('~'), 'directory'))
Note that there is also a os.removedirs - it only removes empty directories recursively, but it may suit your use-case.

This is my function for deleting dirs. The "path" requires the full pathname.
import os
def rm_dir(path):
cwd = os.getcwd()
if not os.path.exists(os.path.join(cwd, path)):
return False
os.chdir(os.path.join(cwd, path))
for file in os.listdir():
print("file = " + file)
os.remove(file)
print(cwd)
os.chdir(cwd)
os.rmdir(os.path.join(cwd, path))

shutil.rmtree is the asynchronous function,
so if you want to check when it complete, you can use while...loop
import os
import shutil
shutil.rmtree(path)
while os.path.exists(path):
pass
print('done')

import os
folder = '/Path/to/yourDir/'
fileList = os.listdir(folder)
for f in fileList:
filePath = folder + '/'+f
if os.path.isfile(filePath):
os.remove(filePath)
elif os.path.isdir(filePath):
newFileList = os.listdir(filePath)
for f1 in newFileList:
insideFilePath = filePath + '/' + f1
if os.path.isfile(insideFilePath):
os.remove(insideFilePath)

For deleting files:
os.unlink(path, *, dir_fd=None)
or
os.remove(path, *, dir_fd=None)
Both functions are semantically same. This functions removes (deletes) the file path. If path is not a file and it is directory, then exception is raised.
For deleting folders:
shutil.rmtree(path, ignore_errors=False, onerror=None)
or
os.rmdir(path, *, dir_fd=None)
In order to remove whole directory trees, shutil.rmtree() can be used. os.rmdir only works when the directory is empty and exists.
For deleting folders recursively towards parent:
os.removedirs(name)
It remove every empty parent directory with self until parent which has some content
ex. os.removedirs('abc/xyz/pqr') will remove the directories by order 'abc/xyz/pqr', 'abc/xyz' and 'abc' if they are empty.
For more info check official doc: os.unlink , os.remove, os.rmdir , shutil.rmtree, os.removedirs

To remove all files in folder
import os
import glob
files = glob.glob(os.path.join('path/to/folder/*'))
files = glob.glob(os.path.join('path/to/folder/*.csv')) // It will give all csv files in folder
for file in files:
os.remove(file)
To remove all folders in a directory
from shutil import rmtree
import os
// os.path.join() # current working directory.
for dirct in os.listdir(os.path.join('path/to/folder')):
rmtree(os.path.join('path/to/folder',dirct))

To avoid the TOCTOU issue highlighted by Éric Araujo's comment, you can catch an exception to call the correct method:
def remove_file_or_dir(path: str) -> None:
""" Remove a file or directory """
try:
shutil.rmtree(path)
except NotADirectoryError:
os.remove(path)
Since shutil.rmtree() will only remove directories and os.remove() or os.unlink() will only remove files.

My personal preference is to work with pathlib objects - it offers a more pythonic and less error-prone way to interact with the filesystem, especially if You develop cross-platform code.
In that case, You might use pathlib3x - it offers a backport of the latest (at the date of writing this answer Python 3.10.a0) Python pathlib for Python 3.6 or newer, and a few additional functions like "copy", "copy2", "copytree", "rmtree" etc ...
It also wraps shutil.rmtree:
$> python -m pip install pathlib3x
$> python
>>> import pathlib3x as pathlib
# delete a directory tree
>>> my_dir_to_delete=pathlib.Path('c:/temp/some_dir')
>>> my_dir_to_delete.rmtree(ignore_errors=True)
# delete a file
>>> my_file_to_delete=pathlib.Path('c:/temp/some_file.txt')
>>> my_file_to_delete.unlink(missing_ok=True)
you can find it on github or PyPi
Disclaimer: I'm the author of the pathlib3x library.

I recommend using subprocess if writing a beautiful and readable code is your cup of tea:
import subprocess
subprocess.Popen("rm -r my_dir", shell=True)
And if you are not a software engineer, then maybe consider using Jupyter; you can simply type bash commands:
!rm -r my_dir
Traditionally, you use shutil:
import shutil
shutil.rmtree(my_dir)

Deleting files which start with a name Python

I have a few files I want to delete, they have the same name at the start but have different version numbers. Does anyone know how to delete files using the start of their name?
Eg.
version_1.1
version_1.2
Is there a way of delting any file that starts with the name version?
Thanks

import os, glob
for filename in glob.glob("mypath/version*"):
os.remove(filename)
Substitute the correct path (or . (= current directory)) for mypath. And make sure you don't get the path wrong :)
This will raise an Exception if a file is currently in use.

If you really want to use Python, you can just use a combination of os.listdir(), which returns a listing of all the files in a certain directory, and os.remove().
I.e.:
my_dir = # enter the dir name
for fname in os.listdir(my_dir):
if fname.startswith("version"):
os.remove(os.path.join(my_dir, fname))
However, as other answers pointed out, you really don't have to use Python for this, the shell probably natively supports such an operation.

In which language?
In bash (Linux / Unix) you could use:
rm version*
or in batch (Windows / DOS) you could use:
del version*
If you want to write something to do this in Python it would be fairly easy - just look at the documentation for regular expressions.
edit:
just for reference, this is how to do it in Perl:
opendir (folder, "./") || die ("Cannot open directory!");
#files = readdir (folder);
closedir (folder);
unlink foreach (grep /^version/, #files);

import os
os.chdir("/home/path")
for file in os.listdir("."):
if os.path.isfile(file) and file.startswith("version"):
try:
os.remove(file)
except Exception,e:
print e

The following function will remove all files and folders in a directory which start with a common string:
import os
import shutil
def cleanse_folder(directory, prefix):
for item in os.listdir(directory):
path = os.path.join(directory, item)
if item.startswith(prefix):
if os.path.isfile(path):
os.remove(path)
elif os.path.isdir(os.path.join(directory, item)):
shutil.rmtree(path)
else:
print("A simlink or something called {} was not deleted.".format(item))

import os
import re
directory = "./uploaded"
pattern = "1638813371180"
files_in_directory = os.listdir(directory)
filtered_files = [file for file in files_in_directory if ( re.search(pattern,file))]
for file in filtered_files:
path_to_file = os.path.join(directory, file)
os.remove(path_to_file)