Move files in folders to a top-level directory

Question

I am trying to complete a script for my work that cleans up their file organization system. The last part of my script needs to go inside all folders in a given directory, and move all files in every folder to the directory. For example:

import os
path = 'C:/User/Tom/Documents'
folders = os.listdir(path)
print(folders)

Lets say the folder structure is like this:

Documents  
[________ Folder A    
..................[_________ File 1  
..................[_________ File 2  
[________ Folder B  
..................[_________ File 3  
..................[_________ File 4  
[________ Folder C  
..................[_________ File 5  
..................[_________ File 6  
..................[_________ File 7

My goal is to somehow go into each folder under "Documents", empty out the folders by moving all of the files one level up without having to input folder names or file names to be in the Documents path that looks like this:

Documents  
[________ Folder A    
[_________ File 1  
[_________ File 2  
[________ Folder B  
[_________ File 3  
[_________ File 4  
[________ Folder C  
[_________ File 5  
[_________ File 6  
[_________ File 7

I am newer to python and my only thought on how to efficiently do this would be to type out a lot of code that goes into each folder directory, and shutil.move() them. However this wouldn't work for my application as the script needs to be able to complete this task for X amount of folders with Y amount of files and not having to input each folder path.

I am asking for any advice on an efficient way I can loop through my 'folders' list and simply move the files out of the folder into the path's directory.
Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to be as detailed as possible about my question, thanks!

You want to empty out the folders and move the files one level up? — cs95, Aug 16 '17 at 01:19
@cᴏʟᴅsᴘᴇᴇᴅ Yes exactly, something that can loop through all folders in a given directory and move the files within them one level up!! — Bkal05, Aug 16 '17 at 03:08
@Emma Thanks for the link! I know how to move files to certain places, but what I am having trouble with is creating an efficient loop that with a given path in the type of a string, to be able to empty out each folder in that path by moving every file in those folders one level up. — Bkal05, Aug 16 '17 at 03:30

cs95 · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-16T04:01:54.193

6

I would recommend a recursive bottom-up traversal using os.walk, and moving your files accordingly.

import os
import shutil
doc_path = 'C:/User/Tom/Documents'

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(doc_path, topdown=False):
    for file in files:
        try:
            shutil.move(os.path.join(root, file), doc_path)
        except OSError:
            pass

This will move everything to the top level directory.

edited Aug 16 '17 at 04:01

answered Aug 16 '17 at 03:46

cs95

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I added import shutil, however I tried this with a basic 3 folder layout with random files in each. I got this error: TypeError: join() argument must be str or bytes, not 'list'. Any idea how to fix that? Thanks! – Bkal05 Aug 16 '17 at 03:59
1

@Bkal05 My mistake. Try it now? – cs95 Aug 16 '17 at 04:02
1

@COLDSPEED Ah yes adding that second for loop turns the list into separate string, that makes sense! Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it! – Bkal05 Aug 16 '17 at 04:05

Move files in folders to a top-level directory

1 Answers1