[node.js] How to create full path with node's fs.mkdirSync?

I'm trying to create a full path if it doesn't exist.

The code looks like this:

var fs = require('fs');
if (!fs.existsSync(newDest)) fs.mkdirSync(newDest); 

This code works great as long as there is only one subdirectory (a newDest like 'dir1') however when there is a directory path like ('dir1/dir2') it fails with Error: ENOENT, no such file or directory

I'd like to be able to create the full path with as few lines of code as necessary.

I read there is a recursive option on fs and tried it like this

var fs = require('fs');
if (!fs.existsSync(newDest)) fs.mkdirSync(newDest,'0777', true);

I feel like it should be that simple to recursively create a directory that doesn't exist. Am I missing something or do I need to parse the path and check each directory and create it if it doesn't already exist?

I'm pretty new to Node. Maybe I'm using an old version of FS?

This feature has been added to node.js in version 10.12.0, so it's as easy as passing an option {recursive: true} as second argument to the fs.mkdir() call. See the example in the official docs.

No need for external modules or your own implementation.

const fs = require('fs');

try {
    fs.mkdirSync(path, { recursive: true });
} catch (error) {
    // this make script keep running, even when folder already exist
    console.log(error);
}

A more robust answer is to use use mkdirp.

var mkdirp = require('mkdirp');

mkdirp('/path/to/dir', function (err) {
    if (err) console.error(err)
    else console.log('dir created')
});

Then proceed to write the file into the full path with:

fs.writeFile ('/path/to/dir/file.dat'....

Edit

NodeJS version 10.12.0 has added a native support for both mkdir and mkdirSync to create a directory recursively with recursive: true option as the following:

fs.mkdirSync(targetDir, { recursive: true });

And if you prefer fs Promises API, you can write

fs.promises.mkdir(targetDir, { recursive: true });

Original Answer

Create directories recursively if they do not exist! (Zero dependencies)

const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

function mkDirByPathSync(targetDir, { isRelativeToScript = false } = {}) {
  const sep = path.sep;
  const initDir = path.isAbsolute(targetDir) ? sep : '';
  const baseDir = isRelativeToScript ? __dirname : '.';

  return targetDir.split(sep).reduce((parentDir, childDir) => {
    const curDir = path.resolve(baseDir, parentDir, childDir);
    try {
      fs.mkdirSync(curDir);
    } catch (err) {
      if (err.code === 'EEXIST') { // curDir already exists!
        return curDir;
      }

      // To avoid `EISDIR` error on Mac and `EACCES`-->`ENOENT` and `EPERM` on Windows.
      if (err.code === 'ENOENT') { // Throw the original parentDir error on curDir `ENOENT` failure.
        throw new Error(`EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '${parentDir}'`);
      }

      const caughtErr = ['EACCES', 'EPERM', 'EISDIR'].indexOf(err.code) > -1;
      if (!caughtErr || caughtErr && curDir === path.resolve(targetDir)) {
        throw err; // Throw if it's just the last created dir.
      }
    }

    return curDir;
  }, initDir);
}

Usage

// Default, make directories relative to current working directory.
mkDirByPathSync('path/to/dir');

// Make directories relative to the current script.
mkDirByPathSync('path/to/dir', {isRelativeToScript: true});

// Make directories with an absolute path.
mkDirByPathSync('/path/to/dir');

Demo

Try It!

Explanations

• [UPDATE] This solution handles platform-specific errors like EISDIR for Mac and EPERM and EACCES for Windows. Thanks to all the reporting comments by @PediT., @JohnQ, @deed02392, @robyoder and @Almenon.
• This solution handles both relative and absolute paths. Thanks to @john comment.
• In the case of relative paths, target directories will be created (resolved) in the current working directory. To Resolve them relative to the current script dir, pass {isRelativeToScript: true}.
• Using path.sep and path.resolve(), not just / concatenation, to avoid cross-platform issues.
• Using fs.mkdirSync and handling the error with try/catch if thrown to handle race conditions: another process may add the file between the calls to fs.existsSync() and fs.mkdirSync() and causes an exception.
  • The other way to achieve that could be checking if a file exists then creating it, I.e, if (!fs.existsSync(curDir) fs.mkdirSync(curDir);. But this is an anti-pattern that leaves the code vulnerable to race conditions. Thanks to @GershomMaes comment about the directory existence check.
• Requires Node v6 and newer to support destructuring. (If you have problems implementing this solution with old Node versions, just leave me a comment)

Too many answers, but here's a solution without recursion that works by splitting the path and then left-to-right building it back up again

function mkdirRecursiveSync(path) {
    let paths = path.split(path.delimiter);
    let fullPath = '';
    paths.forEach((path) => {

        if (fullPath === '') {
            fullPath = path;
        } else {
            fullPath = fullPath + '/' + path;
        }

        if (!fs.existsSync(fullPath)) {
            fs.mkdirSync(fullPath);
        }
    });
};

For those concerned about windows vs Linux compatibility, simply replace the forward slash with double backslash '\' in both occurrence above but TBH we are talking about node fs not windows command line and the former is pretty forgiving and the above code will simply work on Windows and is more a complete solution cross platform.

How about this approach :

if (!fs.existsSync(pathToFile)) {
            var dirName = "";
            var filePathSplit = pathToFile.split('/');
            for (var index = 0; index < filePathSplit.length; index++) {
                dirName += filePathSplit[index]+'/';
                if (!fs.existsSync(dirName))
                    fs.mkdirSync(dirName);
            }
        }

This works for relative path.

I solved the problem this way - similar to other recursive answers but to me this is much easier to understand and read.

const path = require('path');
const fs = require('fs');

function mkdirRecurse(inputPath) {
  if (fs.existsSync(inputPath)) {
    return;
  }
  const basePath = path.dirname(inputPath);
  if (fs.existsSync(basePath)) {
    fs.mkdirSync(inputPath);
  }
  mkdirRecurse(basePath);
}

As clean as this :)

function makedir(fullpath) {
  let destination_split = fullpath.replace('/', '\\').split('\\')
  let path_builder = destination_split[0]
  $.each(destination_split, function (i, path_segment) {
    if (i < 1) return true
    path_builder += '\\' + path_segment
    if (!fs.existsSync(path_builder)) {
      fs.mkdirSync(path_builder)
    }
  })
}

Now with NodeJS >= 10.12.0, you can use fs.mkdirSync(path, { recursive: true }) fs.mkdirSync

This version works better on Windows than the top answer because it understands both / and path.sep so that forward slashes work on Windows as they should. Supports absolute and relative paths (relative to the process.cwd).

/**
 * Creates a folder and if necessary, parent folders also. Returns true
 * if any folders were created. Understands both '/' and path.sep as 
 * path separators. Doesn't try to create folders that already exist,
 * which could cause a permissions error. Gracefully handles the race 
 * condition if two processes are creating a folder. Throws on error.
 * @param targetDir Name of folder to create
 */
export function mkdirSyncRecursive(targetDir) {
  if (!fs.existsSync(targetDir)) {
    for (var i = targetDir.length-2; i >= 0; i--) {
      if (targetDir.charAt(i) == '/' || targetDir.charAt(i) == path.sep) {
        mkdirSyncRecursive(targetDir.slice(0, i));
        break;
      }
    }
    try {
      fs.mkdirSync(targetDir);
      return true;
    } catch (err) {
      if (err.code !== 'EEXIST') throw err;
    }
  }
  return false;
}

Based on mouneer's zero-dependencies answer, here's a slightly more beginner friendly Typescript variant, as a module:

import * as fs from 'fs';
import * as path from 'path';

/**
* Recursively creates directories until `targetDir` is valid.
* @param targetDir target directory path to be created recursively.
* @param isRelative is the provided `targetDir` a relative path?
*/
export function mkdirRecursiveSync(targetDir: string, isRelative = false) {
    const sep = path.sep;
    const initDir = path.isAbsolute(targetDir) ? sep : '';
    const baseDir = isRelative ? __dirname : '.';

    targetDir.split(sep).reduce((prevDirPath, dirToCreate) => {
        const curDirPathToCreate = path.resolve(baseDir, prevDirPath, dirToCreate);
        try {
            fs.mkdirSync(curDirPathToCreate);
        } catch (err) {
            if (err.code !== 'EEXIST') {
                throw err;
            }
            // caught EEXIST error if curDirPathToCreate already existed (not a problem for us).
        }

        return curDirPathToCreate; // becomes prevDirPath on next call to reduce
    }, initDir);
}

You can simply check folder exist or not in path recursively and make the folder as you check if they are not present. (NO EXTERNAL LIBRARY)

function checkAndCreateDestinationPath (fileDestination) {
    const dirPath = fileDestination.split('/');
    dirPath.forEach((element, index) => {
        if(!fs.existsSync(dirPath.slice(0, index + 1).join('/'))){
            fs.mkdirSync(dirPath.slice(0, index + 1).join('/')); 
        }
    });
}

I had issues with the recursive option of fs.mkdir so I made a function that does the following:

1. Creates a list of all directories, starting with the final target dir and working up to the root parent.
2. Creates a new list of needed directories for the mkdir function to work

3. Makes each directory needed, including the final

   function createDirectoryIfNotExistsRecursive(dirname) {
       return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
          const fs = require('fs');
   
          var slash = '/';
   
          // backward slashes for windows
          if(require('os').platform() === 'win32') {
             slash = '\\';
          }
          // initialize directories with final directory
          var directories_backwards = [dirname];
          var minimize_dir = dirname;
          while (minimize_dir = minimize_dir.substring(0, minimize_dir.lastIndexOf(slash))) {
             directories_backwards.push(minimize_dir);
          }
   
          var directories_needed = [];
   
          //stop on first directory found
          for(const d in directories_backwards) {
             if(!(fs.existsSync(directories_backwards[d]))) {
                directories_needed.push(directories_backwards[d]);
             } else {
                break;
             }
          }
   
          //no directories missing
          if(!directories_needed.length) {
             return resolve();
          }
   
          // make all directories in ascending order
          var directories_forwards = directories_needed.reverse();
   
          for(const d in directories_forwards) {
             fs.mkdirSync(directories_forwards[d]);
          }
   
          return resolve();
       });
    }
   

i know this is an old question, but nodejs v10.12.0 now supports this natively with the recursive option set to true. fs.mkdir

// Creates /tmp/a/apple, regardless of whether `/tmp` and /tmp/a exist.
fs.mkdir('/tmp/a/apple', { recursive: true }, (err) => {
  if (err) throw err;
});

Here's my imperative version of mkdirp for nodejs.

function mkdirSyncP(location) {
    let normalizedPath = path.normalize(location);
    let parsedPathObj = path.parse(normalizedPath);
    let curDir = parsedPathObj.root;
    let folders = parsedPathObj.dir.split(path.sep);
    folders.push(parsedPathObj.base);
    for(let part of folders) {
        curDir = path.join(curDir, part);
        if (!fs.existsSync(curDir)) {
            fs.mkdirSync(curDir);
        }
    }
}

Example for Windows (no extra dependencies and error handling)

const path = require('path');
const fs = require('fs');

let dir = "C:\\temp\\dir1\\dir2\\dir3";

function createDirRecursively(dir) {
    if (!fs.existsSync(dir)) {        
        createDirRecursively(path.join(dir, ".."));
        fs.mkdirSync(dir);
    }
}

createDirRecursively(dir); //creates dir1\dir2\dir3 in C:\temp

Using reduce we can verify if each path exists and create it if necessary, also this way I think it is easier to follow. Edited, thanks @Arvin, we should use path.sep to get the proper platform-specific path segment separator.

const path = require('path');

// Path separators could change depending on the platform
const pathToCreate = 'path/to/dir'; 
pathToCreate
 .split(path.sep)
 .reduce((prevPath, folder) => {
   const currentPath = path.join(prevPath, folder, path.sep);
   if (!fs.existsSync(currentPath)){
     fs.mkdirSync(currentPath);
   }
   return currentPath;
 }, '');

You can use the next function

const recursiveUpload = (path: string) => { const paths = path.split("/")

const fullPath = paths.reduce((accumulator, current) => {
  fs.mkdirSync(accumulator)
  return `${accumulator}/${current}`
  })

  fs.mkdirSync(fullPath)

  return fullPath
}

So what it does:

1. Create paths variable, where it stores every path by itself as an element of the array.
2. Adds "/" at the end of each element in the array.
3. Makes for the cycle:
   1. Creates a directory from the concatenation of array elements which indexes are from 0 to current iteration. Basically, it is recursive.

Hope that helps!

By the way, in Node v10.12.0 you can use recursive path creation by giving it as the additional argument.

fs.mkdir('/tmp/a/apple', { recursive: true }, (err) => { if (err) throw err; });

https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_fs_mkdirsync_path_options

fs-extra adds file system methods that aren't included in the native fs module. It is a drop in replacement for fs.

Install fs-extra

$ npm install --save fs-extra

const fs = require("fs-extra");
// Make sure the output directory is there.
fs.ensureDirSync(newDest);

There are sync and async options.

https://github.com/jprichardson/node-fs-extra/blob/master/docs/ensureDir.md

An asynchronous way to create directories recursively:

import fs from 'fs'

const mkdirRecursive = function(path, callback) {
  let controlledPaths = []
  let paths = path.split(
    '/' // Put each path in an array
  ).filter(
    p => p != '.' // Skip root path indicator (.)
  ).reduce((memo, item) => {
    // Previous item prepended to each item so we preserve realpaths
    const prevItem = memo.length > 0 ? memo.join('/').replace(/\.\//g, '')+'/' : ''
    controlledPaths.push('./'+prevItem+item)
    return [...memo, './'+prevItem+item]
  }, []).map(dir => {
    fs.mkdir(dir, err => {
      if (err && err.code != 'EEXIST') throw err
      // Delete created directory (or skipped) from controlledPath
      controlledPaths.splice(controlledPaths.indexOf(dir), 1)
      if (controlledPaths.length === 0) {
        return callback()
      }
    })
  })
}

// Usage
mkdirRecursive('./photos/recent', () => {
  console.log('Directories created succesfully!')
})

Exec can be messy on windows. There is a more "nodie" solution. Fundamentally, you have a recursive call to see if a directory exists and dive into the child (if it does exist) or create it. Here is a function that will create the children and call a function when finished:

fs = require('fs');
makedirs = function(path, func) {
 var pth = path.replace(/['\\]+/g, '/');
 var els = pth.split('/');
 var all = "";
 (function insertOne() {
   var el = els.splice(0, 1)[0];
   if (!fs.existsSync(all + el)) {
    fs.mkdirSync(all + el);
   }
   all += el + "/";
   if (els.length == 0) {
    func();
   } else {
     insertOne();
   }
   })();

}