How to create a zip archive of a directory in Python

Question

How can I create a zip archive of a directory structure in Python

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So many answers here  and I hope I might contribute with my own version  which is based on the original answer  by the way   but with a more graphical perspective  also using context for each zipfile setup and sorting os walk    in order to have a ordered output   Having these folders and them files  among other folders   I wanted to create a  zip for each cap  folder     tree -d    -- cap 01         -- 0101000001 json         -- 0101000002 json       -- 0101000003 json    -- cap 02       -- 0201000001 json       -- 0201000002 json       -- 0201001003 json    -- cap 03       -- 0301000001 json       -- 0301000002 json       -- 0301000003 json     -- docs       -- map txt       -- main data xml    -- core files       -- core master       -- core slave   Here s what I applied  with comments for better understanding of the process     cat zip cap dirs py      Zip  cap    directories                 import os                                                                        import zipfile as zf                                                               for root  dirs  files in sorted os walk                                                                                                           if  cap   in root                                                                    print f Compressing   root                                                         Defining  zip name  according to Cap  tulo                                      cap dir zip       zip  format root                                                 Opening zipfile context for current root dir                                   with zf ZipFile cap dir zip   w   zf ZIP DEFLATED  as new zip                          Iterating over os walk list of files for the current root dir                  for f in files                                                                         Defining relative path to files from current root dir                          f path   os path join root  f                                                      Writing the file on the  zip file of the context                               new zip write f path     Basically  for each iteration over os walk path   I m opening a context for zipfile setup and afterwards  iterating iterating over files  which is a list of files from root directory  forming the relative path for each file based on the current root directory  appending to the zipfile context which is running   And the output is presented like this     python3 zip cap dirs py Compressing    cap 01 Compressing    cap 02 Compressing    cap 03   To see the contents of each  zip directory  you can use less command     less cap 01 zip  Archive   cap 01 zip  Length   Method    Size  Cmpr    Date    Time   CRC-32   Name --------  ------  ------- ---- ---------- ----- --------  ----   22017  Defl N     2471  89  2019-09-05 08 05 7a3b5ec6  cap 01 0101000001 json   21998  Defl N     2471  89  2019-09-05 08 05 155bece7  cap 01 0101000002 json   23236  Defl N     2573  89  2019-09-05 08 05 55fced20  cap 01 0101000003 json --------          ------- ---                           -------   67251             7515  89                             3 files

User · Answer

You probably want to look at the zipfile module  there s documentation at http   docs python org library zipfile html   You may also want os walk   to index the directory structure

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Modern Python  3 6   using the pathlib module for concise OOP-like handling of paths  and pathlib Path rglob   for recursive globbing  As far as I can tell  this is equivalent to George V  Reilly s answer  zips with compression  the topmost element is a directory  keeps empty dirs  uses relative paths    from pathlib import Path from zipfile import ZIP DEFLATED  ZipFile  from os import PathLike from typing import Union   def zip dir zip name  str  source dir  Union str  PathLike        src path   Path source dir  expanduser   resolve strict True      with ZipFile zip name   w   ZIP DEFLATED  as zf          for file in src path rglob                   zf write file  file relative to src path parent     Note  as optional type hints indicate  zip name can t be a Path object  would be fixed in 3 6 2

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For a concise way to retain the folder hierarchy under the parent directory to be archived   import glob import zipfile  with zipfile ZipFile fp zip   w   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED  as zipf      for fp in glob os path join parent                    base   os path commonpath  parent  fp           zipf write fp  arcname fp replace base         If you want  you could change this to use pathlib for file globbing

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Function to create zip file    def CREATEZIPFILE zipname  path        function to create a zip file      Parameters  zipname - name of the zip file  path - name of folder file to be put in zip file      zipf   zipfile ZipFile zipname   w   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED      zipf setpassword b password    if you want to set password to zipfile       checks if the path is file or directory     if os path isdir path           for files in os listdir path               zipf write os path join path  files   files       elif os path isfile path           zipf write os path join path   path      zipf close

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For adding compression to the resulting zip file  check out this link   You need to change   zip   zipfile ZipFile  Python zip    w     to   zip   zipfile ZipFile  Python zip    w   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED

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A solution using pathlib Path  which is independent of the OS used  import zipfile from pathlib import Path  def zip dir path  Path  zip file path  Path        quot  quot  quot Zip all contents of path to zip file quot  quot  quot      files to zip             file for file in path glob      if file is file        with zipfile ZipFile          zip file path   w   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED  as zip f          for file in files to zip              print file name              zip f write file  file name   current dir   Path cwd     zip dir   current dir    quot test quot  tools zip dir      zip dir  current dir    Zipped dir zip

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I prepared a function by consolidating Mark Byers  solution with Reimund and Morten Zilmer s comments  relative path and including empty directories   As a best practice  with is used in ZipFile s file construction     The function also prepares a default zip file name with the zipped directory name and   zip  extension  Therefore  it works with only one argument  the source directory to be zipped   import os import zipfile  def zip dir path dir  path file zip      if not path file zip      path file zip   os path join          os path dirname path dir   os path basename path dir    zip   with zipfile ZipFile path file zip   wb   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED  as zip file      for root  dirs  files in os walk path dir           for file or dir in files   dirs              zip file write                  os path join root  file or dir                   os path relpath os path join root  file or dir                                   os path join path dir  os path pardir

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I have another code example that may help  using python3  pathlib and zipfile  It should work in any OS   from pathlib import Path import zipfile from datetime import datetime  DATE FORMAT     y m d    def date str           returns the today string year  month  day        return      format datetime now   strftime DATE FORMAT     def zip name path          returns the zip filename as string        cur dir   Path path  resolve       parent dir   cur dir parents 0      zip filename             zip  format parent dir  cur dir name  date str        p zip   Path zip filename      n   1     while p zip exists            zip filename                 zip  format parent dir  cur dir name                                               date str    n           p zip   Path zip filename          n    1     return zip filename   def all files path          iterator returns all files and folders from path as absolute path string             for child in Path path  iterdir            yield str child          if child is dir                for grand child in all files str child                    yield str Path grand child     def zip dir path          generate a zip        zip filename   zip name path      zip file   zipfile ZipFile zip filename   w       print  create    zip filename      for file in all files path           print  adding       file          zip file write file      zip file close     if   name         main         zip dir          print  end

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Try the below one  it worked for me     import zipfile  os zipf    compress zip    def main        directory   r Filepath      toZip directory  def toZip directory       zippedHelp   zipfile ZipFile zipf   w   compression zipfile ZIP DEFLATED        list   os listdir directory      for file list in list          file name   os path join directory file list           if os path isfile file name               print file name             zippedHelp write file name          else              addFolderToZip zippedHelp file list directory              print  ---------------Directory Found-----------------------      zippedHelp close    def addFolderToZip zippedHelp folder directory       path os path join directory folder      print path     file list os listdir path      for file name in file list          file path os path join path file name          if os path isfile file path               zippedHelp write file path          elif os path isdir file name               print  ------------------sub directory found--------------------              addFolderToZip zippedHelp file name path    if   name       main         main

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Use shutil  which is part of python standard library set   Using shutil is so simple see code below      1st arg  Filename of resultant zip tar file   2nd arg  zip tar   3rd arg  dir name   Code   import shutil shutil make archive   home user Desktop Filename   zip    home username Desktop Directory

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If you want a functionality like the compress folder of any common graphical file manager you can use the following code  it uses the zipfile module  Using this code you will have the zip file with the path as its root folder    import os import zipfile  def zipdir path  ziph         Iterate all the directories and files     for root  dirs  files in os walk path             Create a prefix variable with the folder structure inside the path folder             So if a file is at the path directory will be at the root directory of the zip file           so the prefix will be empty  If the file belongs to a containing folder of path folder            then the prefix will be that folder          if root replace path                            prefix              else                    Keep the folder structure after the path folder  append a     at the end                    and remome the first character  if it is a     in order to have a path like                    folder1 folder2 file txt                 prefix   root replace path                            if  prefix 0                                   prefix   prefix 1           for filename in files                  actual file path   root         filename                 zipped file path   prefix   filename                 zipf write  actual file path  zipped file path    zipf   zipfile ZipFile  Python zip    w   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED  zipdir   tmp justtest    zipf  zipf close

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Here s a modern approach  using pathlib  and a context manager  Puts the files directly in the zip  rather than in a subfolder   def zip dir filename  str  dir to zip  pathlib Path       with zipfile ZipFile filename   w   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED  as zipf            Use glob instead of iterdir    to cover all subdirectories          for directory in dir to zip glob                    for file in directory iterdir                    if not file is file                        continue                   Strip the first component  so we don t create an uneeded subdirectory                   containing everything                  zip path   pathlib Path  file parts 1                      Use a string  since zipfile doesn t support pathlib  directly                  zipf write str file   str zip path

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To give more flexibility  e g  select directory file by name use   import os import zipfile  def zipall ob  path  rel          basename   os path basename path      if os path isdir path           if rel                    rel   basename         ob write path  os path join rel           for root  dirs  files in os walk path               for d in dirs                  zipall ob  os path join root  d   os path join rel  d               for f in files                  ob write os path join root  f   os path join rel  f               break     elif os path isfile path           ob write path  os path join rel  basename       else          pass   For a file tree      -- dir         -- dir2                -- file2 txt         -- dir3                -- file3 txt         -- file txt  -- dir4         -- dir5         -- file4 txt  -- listdir zip  -- main py  -- root txt  -- selective zip   You can e g  select only dir4 and root txt   cwd   os getcwd   files    os path join cwd  f  for f in   dir4    root txt     with zipfile ZipFile  selective zip    w    as myzip      for f in files          zipall myzip  f    Or just listdir in script invocation directory and add everything from there   with zipfile ZipFile  listdir zip    w    as myzip      for f in os listdir            if f     listdir zip                 Creating a listdir zip in the same directory               will include listdir zip inside itself  beware of this             continue         zipall myzip  f

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The easiest way is to use shutil make archive  It supports both zip and tar formats   import shutil shutil make archive output filename   zip   dir name    If you need to do something more complicated than zipping the whole directory  such as skipping certain files   then you ll need to dig into the zipfile module as others have suggested

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How can I create a zip archive of a directory structure in Python    In a Python script  In Python 2 7   shutil has a make archive function   from shutil import make archive make archive     zipfile name       zip               the archive format - or tar  bztar  gztar    root dir None      root for archive - current working dir if None   base dir None      start archiving from here - cwd if None too   Here the zipped archive will be named zipfile name zip  If base dir is farther down from root dir it will exclude files not in the base dir  but still archive the files in the parent dirs up to the root dir   I did have an issue testing this on Cygwin with 2 7 - it wants a root dir argument  for cwd   make archive  zipfile name    zip   root dir          Using Python from the shell  You can do this with Python from the shell also using the zipfile module     python -m zipfile -c zipname sourcedir   Where zipname is the name of the destination file you want  add  zip if you want it  it won t do it automatically  and sourcedir is the path to the directory   Zipping up Python  or just don t want parent dir    If you re trying to zip up a python package with a   init   py and   main   py  and you don t want the parent dir  it s     python -m zipfile -c zipname sourcedir     And    python zipname   would run the package   Note that you can t run subpackages as the entry point from a zipped archive    Zipping a Python app   If you have python3 5   and specifically want to zip up a Python package  use zipapp     python -m zipapp myapp   python myapp pyz

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Well  after reading the suggestions I came up with a very similar way that works with 2 7 x without creating  funny  directory names  absolute-like names   and will only create the specified folder inside the zip   Or just in case you needed your zip to contain a folder inside with the contents of the selected directory   def zipDir  path  ziph           Inserts directory  path  into zipfile instance  ziph        for root  dirs  files in os walk  path       for file in files      ziph write  os path join  root  file     os path basename  os path normpath  path              file    def makeZip  pathToFolder           Creates a zip file with the specified folder       zipf   zipfile ZipFile  pathToFolder    file zip    w   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED    zipDir  pathToFolder  zipf    zipf close    print   Zip file saved to      pathToFolder   makeZip   c   path  to  folder  to  insert  into  zipfile

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As others have pointed out  you should use zipfile  The documentation tells you what functions are available  but doesn t really explain how you can use them to zip an entire directory  I think it s easiest to explain with some example code     usr bin env python import os import zipfile  def zipdir path  ziph         ziph is zipfile handle     for root  dirs  files in os walk path           for file in files              ziph write os path join root  file   os path relpath os path join root  file   os path join path             if   name         main         zipf   zipfile ZipFile  Python zip    w   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED      zipdir  tmp    zipf      zipf close      Adapted from  http   www devshed com c a Python Python-UnZipped

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Here is a variation on the answer given by Nux that works for me   def WriteDirectoryToZipFile  zipHandle  srcPath  zipLocalPath       zipOperation   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED        basePath   os path split  srcPath    0       for root  dirs  files in os walk  srcPath            p   os path join  zipLocalPath  root     len  basePath     1                   add dir         zipHandle write  root  p  zipOperation             add files         for f in files              filePath   os path join  root  f               fileInZipPath   os path join  p  f               zipHandle write  filePath  fileInZipPath  zipOperation

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Say you want to Zip all the folders sub directories  in the current directory   for root  dirs  files in os walk           for sub dir in dirs          zip you want   sub dir   zip          zip process   zipfile ZipFile zip you want   w   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED          zip process write file you want to include          zip process close            print  Successfully zipped directory   sub dir   format sub dir sub dir

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I ve made some changes to code given by Mark Byers  Below function will also adds empty directories if you have them  Examples should make it more clear what is the path added to the zip      usr bin env python import os import zipfile  def addDirToZip zipHandle  path  basePath                  Adding directory given by  a path to opened zip file  a zipHandle       param basePath path that will be removed from  a path when adding to archive      Examples            add whole  dir  to  test zip   when you open  test zip  you will see only  dir           zipHandle   zipfile ZipFile  test zip    w           addDirToZip zipHandle   dir           zipHandle close              add contents of  dir  to  test zip   when you open  test zip  you will see only it s contents          zipHandle   zipfile ZipFile  test zip    w           addDirToZip zipHandle   dir    dir           zipHandle close              add contents of  dir subdir  to  test zip   when you open  test zip  you will see only contents of  subdir           zipHandle   zipfile ZipFile  test zip    w           addDirToZip zipHandle   dir subdir    dir subdir           zipHandle close              add whole  dir subdir  to  test zip   when you open  test zip  you will see only  subdir           zipHandle   zipfile ZipFile  test zip    w           addDirToZip zipHandle   dir subdir    dir           zipHandle close              add whole  dir subdir  with full path to  test zip   when you open  test zip  you will see only  dir  and inside it only  subdir           zipHandle   zipfile ZipFile  test zip    w           addDirToZip zipHandle   dir subdir           zipHandle close              add whole  dir  and  otherDir   with full path  to  test zip   when you open  test zip  you will see only  dir  and  otherDir           zipHandle   zipfile ZipFile  test zip    w           addDirToZip zipHandle   dir           addDirToZip zipHandle   otherDir           zipHandle close               basePath   basePath rstrip                 basePath   basePath rstrip            for root  dirs  files in os walk path             add dir itself  needed for empty dirs         zipHandle write os path join root                  add files         for file in files              filePath   os path join root  file              inZipPath   filePath replace basePath      1  lstrip                     print filePath           inZipPath             zipHandle write filePath  inZipPath    Above is a simple function that should work for simple cases  You can find more elegant class in my Gist  https   gist github com Eccenux 17526123107ca0ac28e6

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For anyone else delving into this question and trying to archive the very same directory their program is in and is getting both very deep tree structures and ending up with recursion due to the zip file zipping itself  try this  It s a combination of Mark s answer and some extra checks to ensure that there s no recursive zipping of the zipfile itself  and no unnecessarily deep folder structures  import os import zipfile  def zipdir path  ziph  ignored directories  ignored files         ziph is zipfile handle     for root  dirs  files in os walk path         for file in files          if not any ignored dir in root for ignored dir in ignored directories             if not any ignored fname in file for ignored fname in ignored files               ziph write os path join root  file      current working directory this dir   os path dirname os path abspath   file        the directory within the working directory the zip will be created in  build archives   zip dest dir   os path join  build    archives      verify zip dest dir exists  if not  create it if not os path isdir zip dest dir       os makedirs zip dest dir  exist ok True     leave zip dest dir blank  or set dist dir   this dir  if you want the zip file in the working directory  same directory as the script  dest dir   os path join this dir  zip dest dir     name the zip file  remember the file extension zip filename    zipped directory zip     zip file s path zip path   os path join dest dir  zip filename     create the zipfile handle  you can change ZIP STORED to any other compression algorithm of your choice  like ZIP DEFLATED  if you need actual compression zipf   zipfile ZipFile zip path   w   zipfile ZIP STORED     ignored files and directories  I personally wanted to ignore the  quot build quot  directory  alongside with  quot node modules quot   so those would be listed here  ignored dirs         ignore any specific files  in my case  I was ignoring the script itself  so I d include  deploy py  here ignored files    zip filename     zip directory contents zipdir      zipf  ignored dirs  ignored files  zipf close    The resulting zip file should only include directories starting from the working directory  so no Users user Desktop code     working directory     etc  kind of file structure

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This function will recursively zip up a directory tree  compressing the files  and recording the correct relative filenames in the archive  The archive entries are the same as those generated by zip -r output zip source dir   import os import zipfile def make zipfile output filename  source dir       relroot   os path abspath os path join source dir  os pardir       with zipfile ZipFile output filename   w   zipfile ZIP DEFLATED  as zip          for root  dirs  files in os walk source dir                 add directory  needed for empty dirs              zip write root  os path relpath root  relroot               for file in files                  filename   os path join root  file                  if os path isfile filename     regular files only                     arcname   os path join os path relpath root  relroot   file                      zip write filename  arcname

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Zip a file or a tree  a directory and its sub-directories   from pathlib import Path from zipfile import ZipFile  ZIP DEFLATED  def make zip tree path  zip path  mode  w   skip empty dir False       with ZipFile zip path  mode mode  compression ZIP DEFLATED  as zf          paths    Path tree path           while paths              p   paths pop               if p is dir                    paths extend p iterdir                    if skip empty dir                      continue             zf write p   To append to an existing archive  pass mode  a   to create a fresh archive mode  w   the default in the above   So let s say you want to bundle 3 different directory trees under the same archive  make zip path to tree1  path to arch  mode  w   make zip path to tree2  path to arch  mode  a   make zip path to file3  path to arch  mode  a

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To add the contents of mydirectory to a new zip file  including all files and subdirectories   import os import zipfile  zf   zipfile ZipFile  myzipfile zip    w   for dirname  subdirs  files in os walk  mydirectory        zf write dirname      for filename in files          zf write os path join dirname  filename   zf close

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import required python modules   You have to install zipfile package using pip install  import os zipfile    Change the directory where you want your new zip file to be  os chdir  Type your destination      Create a new zipfile   I called it myfile    zf   zipfile ZipFile  myfile zip   w      os walk gives a directory tree  Access the files using a for loop  for dirnames folders files in os walk  Type your directory        zf write  Type your Directory       for file in files          zf write os path join  Type your directory  file

[python] How to create a zip archive of a directory in Python?

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