Copy directory contents into a directory with python

Question

I have a directory /a/b/c that has files and subdirectories. I need to copy the /a/b/c/* in the /x/y/z directory. What python methods can I use?

I tried shutil.copytree("a/b/c", "/x/y/z"), but python tries to create /x/y/z and raises an error "Directory exists".

Are you trying to move or copy the directory over? Your title says move, but your content says copy. Since these are two different things, it matters exactly which one you mean. — Carlos, Feb 22 '13 at 22:37
Maybe give an example of before and after, to make it clearer what you want the effect to be, as well? — Xymostech, Feb 22 '13 at 22:39
Thanks for your comment, I'll update the heading. It's copy, not move. — prosseek, Feb 22 '13 at 22:39
Np. Also, like @Xymostech said, we're slightly unclear on the desired output. Do you want: /x/y/z/a/b/c or /x/y/z/c? Your use of `copytree` implies the former, but I just want to make sure. — Carlos, Feb 22 '13 at 22:42
Could you simply delete any `/x/y/z/` directory first (`shutil.rmtree()`) and then do `copytree()`? — Eric O. Lebigot, Feb 23 '13 at 04:54
@EOL: The issue is that I need to keep the existing files/directories in "/x/y/z". — prosseek, Feb 23 '13 at 14:17
@prosseek: Do you need to do this at all depths? i.e. if you have `/a/b/c/t/u`, do you need to keep any `/x/y/z/t/v`? i.e. do you only need to create/overwrite, without deleting anything? — Eric O. Lebigot, Feb 24 '13 at 09:21
This is no longer an issue as of Python 3.8 via the `copytree`'s `dirs_exist_ok=True` flag. See [doc](https://docs.python.org/3/library/shutil.html#shutil.copytree) — Jay, May 28 '20 at 13:32

score 228 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 25 '22 at 15:46

228

I found this code working which is part of the standard library:

from distutils.dir_util import copy_tree

# copy subdirectory example
from_directory = "/a/b/c"
to_directory = "/x/y/z"

copy_tree(from_directory, to_directory)

Reference:

edited Jan 25 '22 at 15:46

Martin Thoma

124,992
159
614
958

answered Feb 22 '13 at 22:36

prosseek

182,215
215
566
871

1

An excellent solution, I suggest adding `update=1` to copy_tree() if that is what you need. – Hai Vu Feb 22 '13 at 22:59
13

Just bear in mind that copy_tree will fail if you call it twice for same set of args, and you've wiped the destination in the meantime. This is due to path caching in mkpath, see https://bugs.python.org/issue10948 – yacoob Dec 26 '16 at 00:15
What if I want to overwrite all existing files no matter what. Does this function overwrite existing files if update=0? – Dmitriy Jan 30 '17 at 17:48
1

funnily enough shutil.copy2 in a loop is much faster than copying the directory as a whole. – ikamen Jun 21 '18 at 14:58
7

If you repeatedly copy folders into the same destination, DO NOT USE this function. as @yacoob stated, this will fail in an unexpected way. Figuring it out gave me a headache. I am commenting again to increase visibility for others. – Martin Melka Jun 28 '18 at 14:39
3

FYI pathlib Path objects break dir_utils, which wants paths as text. – knowingpark Oct 24 '18 at 03:35
@yacoob does that mean we should not use copy_tree or this answer? what is the proper and safe way to do this? – Charlie Parker Jan 25 '22 at 23:00
is this a better way? at least it does not do weird stuff https://stackoverflow.com/a/50331781/1601580 `call(['cp', '-a', source, target])` – Charlie Parker Jan 25 '22 at 23:01
`DeprecationWarning: The distutils package is deprecated and slated for removal in Python 3.12` – v.oddou Apr 19 '22 at 09:19
This will get removed in python 3.12 – Mika C. May 26 '22 at 22:48
Ridiculous. I want to copy a directory and you have to import some non-obvious library then find it doesn't work in recent versions of Python. – Snowcrash Nov 11 '22 at 12:20

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 29 '14 at 05:55

4

You can also use glob2 to recursively collect all paths (using ** subfolders wildcard) and then use shutil.copyfile, saving the paths

glob2 link: https://code.activestate.com/pypm/glob2/

answered Aug 29 '14 at 05:55

ikudyk

41
1

Bowen Xu · Answer 3 · 2018-05-14T14:11:03.253

1

from subprocess import call

def cp_dir(source, target):
    call(['cp', '-a', source, target]) # Linux

cp_dir('/a/b/c/', '/x/y/z/')

It works for me. Basically, it executes shell command cp.

edited May 14 '18 at 14:11

answered May 14 '18 at 13:39

Bowen Xu

3,836
1
23
25

9

yes, but this is not pythonic way :) – Artsiom Praneuski Jul 26 '18 at 11:06
@ArtsiomPraneuski I agree, but sometimes may be helpful. :) – Bowen Xu Mar 01 '19 at 03:11
3

Does not work aside POSIX – Nov 04 '19 at 05:30
Thanks! This is much faster than other methods! – Alldb Jan 30 '20 at 19:20
@Alldb Is it faster? Have you benchmarked it? – user202729 Jan 02 '21 at 03:22

score -15 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 01 '16 at 13:17

The python libs are obsolete with this function. I've done one that works correctly:

import os
import shutil

def copydirectorykut(src, dst):
    os.chdir(dst)
    list=os.listdir(src)
    nom= src+'.txt'
    fitx= open(nom, 'w')

    for item in list:
        fitx.write("%s\n" % item)

    fitx.close()

    f = open(nom,'r')
    for line in f.readlines():
        if "." in line:
            shutil.copy(src+'/'+line[:-1],dst+'/'+line[:-1])
        else:
            if not os.path.exists(dst+'/'+line[:-1]):
                os.makedirs(dst+'/'+line[:-1])
                copydirectorykut(src+'/'+line[:-1],dst+'/'+line[:-1])
            copydirectorykut(src+'/'+line[:-1],dst+'/'+line[:-1])
    f.close()
    os.remove(nom)
    os.chdir('..')

Copy directory contents into a directory with python

4 Answers4

Linked