Python - Move and overwrite files and folders

Question

I have a directory   Dst Directory   which has files and folders in it and I have  src Directory  which also has files and folders in it  What I want to do is move the contents of  src Directory  to  Dst Directory  and overwrite anyfiles that exist with the same name  So for example  Src Directory file txt  needs to be moved to  Dst Directory   and overwrite the existing file txt  The same applies for some folders  moving a folder and merging the contents with the same folder in  dst directory   I m currently using shutil move to move the contents of src to dst but it won t do it if the files already exist and it won t merge folders  it ll just put the folder inside the existing folder   Update  To make things a bit clearer  what I m doing is unzipping an archive to the Dst Directory and then moving the contents of Src Directory there and rezipping  effectively updating files in the zip archive  This will be repeated for adding new files or new versions of files etc which is why it needs to overwrite and merge  Solved  I solved my problem by using distutils dir util copy tree src  dst   this copies the folders and files from src directory to dst directory and overwrites merges where neccesary  Hope that helps some people   Hope that makes sense  thanks

User · Accepted Answer

Use copy   instead  which is willing to overwrite destination files  If you then want the first tree to go away  just rmtree   it separately once you are done iterating over it   http   docs python org library shutil html shutil copy  http   docs python org library shutil html shutil rmtree  Update   Do an os walk   over the source tree  For each directory  check if it exists on the destination side  and os makedirs   it if it is missing  For each file  simply shutil copy   and the file will be created or overwritten  whichever is appropriate

User · Answer

I had a similar problem  I wanted to move files and folder structures and overwrite existing files  but not delete anything which is in the destination folder structure   I solved it by using os walk    recursively calling my function and using shutil move   on files which I wanted to overwrite and folders which did not exist   It works like shutil move    but with the benefit that existing files are only overwritten  but not deleted   import os import shutil  def moverecursively source folder  destination folder       basename   os path basename source folder      dest dir   os path join destination folder  basename      if not os path exists dest dir           shutil move source folder  destination folder      else          dst path   os path join destination folder  basename          for root  dirs  files in os walk source folder               for item in files                  src path   os path join root  item                  if os path exists dst file                       os remove dst file                  shutil move src path  dst path              for item in dirs                  src path   os path join root  item                  moverecursively src path  dst path

User · Answer

If you also need to overwrite files with read only flag use this   def copyDirTree root src dir root dst dir       Copy directory tree  Overwrites also read only files   param root src dir  source directory  param root dst dir   destination directory     for src dir  dirs  files in os walk root src dir       dst dir   src dir replace root src dir  root dst dir  1      if not os path exists dst dir           os makedirs dst dir      for file  in files          src file   os path join src dir  file           dst file   os path join dst dir  file           if os path exists dst file               try                  os remove dst file              except PermissionError as exc                  os chmod dst file  stat S IWUSR                  os remove dst file           shutil copy src file  dst dir

User · Answer

You can use this to copy directory overwriting existing files  import shutil shutil copytree  quot src quot    quot dst quot   dirs exist ok True   dirs exist ok argument was added in Python 3 8  See docs  https   docs python org 3 library shutil html shutil copytree

User · Answer

Since none of the above worked for me  so I wrote my own recursive function  Call Function copyTree dir1  dir2  to merge directories  Run on multi-platforms Linux and Windows    def forceMergeFlatDir srcDir  dstDir       if not os path exists dstDir           os makedirs dstDir      for item in os listdir srcDir           srcFile   os path join srcDir  item          dstFile   os path join dstDir  item          forceCopyFile srcFile  dstFile   def forceCopyFile  sfile  dfile       if os path isfile sfile           shutil copy2 sfile  dfile   def isAFlatDir sDir       for item in os listdir sDir           sItem   os path join sDir  item          if os path isdir sItem               return False     return True   def copyTree src  dst       for item in os listdir src           s   os path join src  item          d   os path join dst  item          if os path isfile s               if not os path exists dst                   os makedirs dst              forceCopyFile s d          if os path isdir s               isRecursive   not isAFlatDir s              if isRecursive                  copyTree s  d              else                  forceMergeFlatDir s  d

User · Answer

This will go through the source directory  create any directories that do not already exist in destination directory  and move files from source to the destination directory   import os import shutil  root src dir    Src Directory    root dst dir    Dst Directory     for src dir  dirs  files in os walk root src dir       dst dir   src dir replace root src dir  root dst dir  1      if not os path exists dst dir           os makedirs dst dir      for file  in files          src file   os path join src dir  file           dst file   os path join dst dir  file           if os path exists dst file                 in case of the src and dst are the same file             if os path samefile src file  dst file                   continue             os remove dst file          shutil move src file  dst dir    Any pre-existing files will be removed first  via os remove  before being replace by the corresponding source file  Any files or directories that already exist in the destination but not in the source will remain untouched

User · Answer

Have a look at  os remove to remove existing files

[python] Python - Move and overwrite files and folders

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