Python: Delete / Remove Files

To delete a file in Python, you can use the os module's remove() function. This function takes the name of the file as an argument and removes it from the file system.

For example:

import os

# Delete the file "test.txt"
os.remove("test.txt")

If the file does not exist, the remove() function will raise a FileNotFoundError exception. You can use a try-except block to handle this exception:

import os

try:
    # Delete the file "test.txt"
    os.remove("test.txt")
except FileNotFoundError:
    print("File not found")

Alternatively, you can use the os.path module's exists() function to check if the file exists before calling os.remove():

import os

if os.path.exists("test.txt"):
    # Delete the file "test.txt"
    os.remove("test.txt")
else:
    print("File not found")

You can also use the shutil module's rmtree() function to delete a directory and all of its contents, including any subdirectories and files. This function takes the name of the directory as an argument.

For example:

import shutil

# Delete the directory "test" and all of its contents
shutil.rmtree("test")

Like the os.remove() function, shutil.rmtree() will raise a FileNotFoundError exception if the directory does not exist. You can use a try-except block to handle this exception, or use the os.path.exists() function to check if the directory exists before calling shutil.rmtree().