Is there a way to return a list of all the subdirectories in the current directory in Python?
I know you can do this with files, but I need to get the list of directories instead.
Do you mean immediate subdirectories, or every directory right down the tree?
Either way, you could use os.walk
to do this:
os.walk(directory)
will yield a tuple for each subdirectory. Ths first entry in the 3-tuple is a directory name, so
[x[0] for x in os.walk(directory)]
should give you all of the subdirectories, recursively.
Note that the second entry in the tuple is the list of child directories of the entry in the first position, so you could use this instead, but it's not likely to save you much.
However, you could use it just to give you the immediate child directories:
next(os.walk('.'))[1]
Or see the other solutions already posted, using os.listdir
and os.path.isdir
, including those at "How to get all of the immediate subdirectories in Python".
os.walk
and os.listdir
+os.path.isdir
solutions: I just tested on a directory with 10,000 subdirectories (with millions of files in the hierarchy below) and the performance differences are negligible. os.walk
: "10 loops, best of 3: 44.6 msec per loop" and os.listdir
+os.path.isdir
: "10 loops, best of 3: 45.1 msec per loop"
Feb 28, 2017 at 19:05
os.walk
should beat os.listdir
+os.path.isdir
, especially on network drives. Reasons: 1) os.walk
is lazy; if you do next(os.walk('.'))[1]
it performs a single directory listing & categorizing by dir/non-dir, and then goes away. The cost of setting up the generator is non-zero, but it's utterly unrelated to the cost of file system access. 2) As of 3.5, os.walk
is implemented via os.scandir
, which doesn't require per-entry stat
calls to categorize dir/non-dir (aside from symlinks)…
Jul 28, 2022 at 12:17
You could just use glob.glob
from glob import glob
glob("/path/to/directory/*/", recursive = True)
Don't forget the trailing /
after the *
.
/
to be the folder separator, do this: glob(os.path.join(path_to_directory, "*", ""))
Mar 21, 2018 at 16:17
recursive=True
Nov 12, 2019 at 12:39
Much nicer than the above, because you don't need several os.path.join() and you will get the full path directly (if you wish), you can do this in Python 3.5 and above.
subfolders = [ f.path for f in os.scandir(folder) if f.is_dir() ]
This will give the complete path to the subdirectory.
If you only want the name of the subdirectory use f.name
instead of f.path
https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.scandir
Slightly OT: In case you need all subfolder recursively and/or all files recursively, have a look at this function, that is faster than os.walk
& glob
and will return a list of all subfolders as well as all files inside those (sub-)subfolders: https://stackoverflow.com/a/59803793/2441026
In case you want only all subfolders recursively:
def fast_scandir(dirname):
subfolders= [f.path for f in os.scandir(dirname) if f.is_dir()]
for dirname in list(subfolders):
subfolders.extend(fast_scandir(dirname))
return subfolders
Returns a list of all subfolders with their full paths. This again is faster than os.walk
and a lot faster than glob
.
An analysis of all functions
tl;dr:
- If you want to get all immediate subdirectories for a folder use os.scandir
.
- If you want to get all subdirectories, even nested ones, use os.walk
or - slightly faster - the fast_scandir
function above.
- Never use os.walk
for only top-level subdirectories, as it can be hundreds(!) of times slower than os.scandir
.
os.walk
will be the base folder. So you will not get only subdirectories. You can use fu.pop(0)
to remove it.Results:
os.scandir took 1 ms. Found dirs: 439
os.walk took 463 ms. Found dirs: 441 -> it found the nested one + base folder.
glob.glob took 20 ms. Found dirs: 439
pathlib.iterdir took 18 ms. Found dirs: 439
os.listdir took 18 ms. Found dirs: 439
Tested with W7x64, Python 3.8.1.
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
# Python 3
import time
import os
from glob import glob
from pathlib import Path
directory = r"<insert_folder>"
RUNS = 1
def run_os_walk():
a = time.time_ns()
for i in range(RUNS):
fu = [x[0] for x in os.walk(directory)]
print(f"os.walk\t\t\ttook {(time.time_ns() - a) / 1000 / 1000 / RUNS:.0f} ms. Found dirs: {len(fu)}")
def run_glob():
a = time.time_ns()
for i in range(RUNS):
fu = glob(directory + "/*/")
print(f"glob.glob\t\ttook {(time.time_ns() - a) / 1000 / 1000 / RUNS:.0f} ms. Found dirs: {len(fu)}")
def run_pathlib_iterdir():
a = time.time_ns()
for i in range(RUNS):
dirname = Path(directory)
fu = [f for f in dirname.iterdir() if f.is_dir()]
print(f"pathlib.iterdir\ttook {(time.time_ns() - a) / 1000 / 1000 / RUNS:.0f} ms. Found dirs: {len(fu)}")
def run_os_listdir():
a = time.time_ns()
for i in range(RUNS):
dirname = Path(directory)
fu = [os.path.join(directory, o) for o in os.listdir(directory) if os.path.isdir(os.path.join(directory, o))]
print(f"os.listdir\t\ttook {(time.time_ns() - a) / 1000 / 1000 / RUNS:.0f} ms. Found dirs: {len(fu)}")
def run_os_scandir():
a = time.time_ns()
for i in range(RUNS):
fu = [f.path for f in os.scandir(directory) if f.is_dir()]
print(f"os.scandir\t\ttook {(time.time_ns() - a) / 1000 / 1000 / RUNS:.0f} ms.\tFound dirs: {len(fu)}")
if __name__ == '__main__':
run_os_scandir()
run_os_walk()
run_glob()
run_pathlib_iterdir()
run_os_listdir()
using
pathlib` as follows `[f for f in p.iterdir() if f.is_dir()]``
Jul 20, 2020 at 16:29
fast_scandir
and it's taking over an hour. Is this normal? Is there anything I can do to speed it up?
for dirname in list(subfolders):
that list
is superfluous I believe. It wouldn't even do a copy, right?
import os
d = '.'
[os.path.join(d, o) for o in os.listdir(d)
if os.path.isdir(os.path.join(d,o))]
os.path.join
on o
to get the full path, otherwise isdir(0)
will always return false
Aug 22, 2012 at 20:32
os.path.join
twice, you can first join and then filter the list using os.path.isdir
: filter(os.path.isdir, [os.path.join(d, o) for o in os.listdir(d)])
Jun 14, 2019 at 15:11
[f for f in data_path.iterdir() if f.is_dir()]
or glob is much simpler and easier to read: glob.glob("/path/to/directory/*/")
.
Jul 20, 2020 at 16:32
Python 3.4 introduced the pathlib
module into the standard library, which provides an object oriented approach to handle filesystem paths:
from pathlib import Path
p = Path('./')
# All subdirectories in the current directory, not recursive.
[f for f in p.iterdir() if f.is_dir()]
To recursively list all subdirectories, path globbing can be used with the **
pattern.
# This will also include the current directory '.'
list(p.glob('**'))
Note that a single *
as the glob pattern would include both files and directories non-recursively. To get only directories, a trailing /
can be appended but this only works when using the glob library directly, not when using glob via pathlib:
import glob
# These three lines return both files and directories
list(p.glob('*'))
list(p.glob('*/'))
glob.glob('*')
# Whereas this returns only directories
glob.glob('*/')
So Path('./').glob('**')
matches the same paths as glob.glob('**/', recursive=True)
.
Pathlib is also available on Python 2.7 via the pathlib2 module on PyPi.
for f in filter(Path.is_dir, p.iterdir()):
Oct 26, 2019 at 8:00
gloab(*/)
not sufficient? Regardless, fabulous answer, specially for your clean use of pathlib
. It would be nice to comment if it also allows recursion, though from the title of the question that's not needed and future readers should read the docs you link.
Jul 20, 2020 at 16:26
**
with pathlib's glob. Regarding, using a single asterisk, this would match files and directories non-recursively.
Jul 20, 2020 at 18:14
glob.glob('**/', recursive=True)
won't include hidden directories, but Path('./').glob('**')
does
sorted()
at the start, so that the returned list is sorted...might or might not be useful depending on use case
Apr 20, 2022 at 15:45
If you need a recursive solution that will find all the subdirectories in the subdirectories, use walk as proposed before.
If you only need the current directory's child directories, combine os.listdir
with os.path.isdir
pathlib
is simpler: [f for f in p.iterdir() if f.is_dir()]
Jul 20, 2020 at 16:26
print("\nWe are listing out only the directories in current directory -")
directories_in_curdir = list(filter(os.path.isdir, os.listdir(os.curdir)))
print(directories_in_curdir)
files = list(filter(os.path.isfile, os.listdir(os.curdir)))
print("\nThe following are the list of all files in the current directory -")
print(files)
isdir
outside the filter chain on Mac OS X.
Mar 11, 2022 at 6:02
I prefer using filter (https://docs.python.org/2/library/functions.html#filter), but this is just a matter of taste.
d='.'
filter(lambda x: os.path.isdir(os.path.join(d, x)), os.listdir(d))
pathlib
is simpler: [f for f in p.iterdir() if f.is_dir()]
Jul 20, 2020 at 16:26
Implemented this using python-os-walk. (http://www.pythonforbeginners.com/code-snippets-source-code/python-os-walk/)
import os
print("root prints out directories only from what you specified")
print("dirs prints out sub-directories from root")
print("files prints out all files from root and directories")
print("*" * 20)
for root, dirs, files in os.walk("/var/log"):
print(root)
print(dirs)
print(files)
pathlib
is simpler: [f for f in p.iterdir() if f.is_dir()]
Jul 20, 2020 at 16:29
You can get the list of subdirectories (and files) in Python 2.7 using os.listdir(path)
import os
os.listdir(path) # list of subdirectories and files
os.listdir
lists contents of directory including files.
Since I stumbled upon this problem using Python 3.4 and Windows UNC paths, here's a variant for this environment:
from pathlib import WindowsPath
def SubDirPath (d):
return [f for f in d.iterdir() if f.is_dir()]
subdirs = SubDirPath(WindowsPath(r'\\file01.acme.local\home$'))
print(subdirs)
Pathlib is new in Python 3.4 and makes working with paths under different OSes much easier: https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/pathlib.html
Although this question is answered a long time ago. I want to recommend to use the pathlib
module since this is a robust way to work on Windows and Unix OS.
So to get all paths in a specific directory including subdirectories:
from pathlib import Path
paths = list(Path('myhomefolder', 'folder').glob('**/*.txt'))
# all sorts of operations
file = paths[0]
file.name
file.stem
file.parent
file.suffix
etc.
Copy paste friendly in ipython
:
import os
d='.'
folders = list(filter(lambda x: os.path.isdir(os.path.join(d, x)), os.listdir(d)))
Output from print(folders)
:
['folderA', 'folderB']
x
is the item from the list created by os.listdir(d)
because listdir
will return files and folders he is using the filter
command with os.path.isdir
to filter any files out from the list.
May 28, 2019 at 18:35
Thanks for the tips, guys. I ran into an issue with softlinks (infinite recursion) being returned as dirs. Softlinks? We don't want no stinkin' soft links! So...
This rendered just the dirs, not softlinks:
>>> import os
>>> inf = os.walk('.')
>>> [x[0] for x in inf]
['.', './iamadir']
Here are a couple of simple functions based on @Blair Conrad's example -
import os
def get_subdirs(dir):
"Get a list of immediate subdirectories"
return next(os.walk(dir))[1]
def get_subfiles(dir):
"Get a list of immediate subfiles"
return next(os.walk(dir))[2]
This is how I do it.
import os
for x in os.listdir(os.getcwd()):
if os.path.isdir(x):
print(x)
Building upon Eli Bendersky's solution, use the following example:
import os
test_directory = <your_directory>
for child in os.listdir(test_directory):
test_path = os.path.join(test_directory, child)
if os.path.isdir(test_path):
print test_path
# Do stuff to the directory "test_path"
where <your_directory>
is the path to the directory you want to traverse.
With full path and accounting for path being .
, ..
, \\
, ..\\..\\subfolder
, etc:
import os, pprint
pprint.pprint([os.path.join(os.path.abspath(path), x[0]) \
for x in os.walk(os.path.abspath(path))])
The easiest way:
from pathlib import Path
from glob import glob
current_dir = Path.cwd()
all_sub_dir_paths = glob(str(current_dir) + '/*/') # returns list of sub directory paths
all_sub_dir_names = [Path(sub_dir).name for sub_dir in all_sub_dir_paths]
glob
module usage with new-style pathlib
stuff (necessitating constant conversions between str
and Path
objects). If you want do demonstrate pathlib
stuff, stick to pathlib
where possible; it's frankly prettier anyway, and clearer to boot (vs. your code relying on that trailing /
to make glob.glob
not return files, a behavior Path.glob
doesn't replicate): all_sub_dir_names = [pth.name for pth in Path.cwd().iterdir() if pth.is_dir()]
Jul 28, 2022 at 12:48
This answer didn't seem to exist already.
directories = [ x for x in os.listdir('.') if os.path.isdir(x) ]
I've had a similar question recently, and I found out that the best answer for python 3.6 (as user havlock added) is to use os.scandir
. Since it seems there is no solution using it, I'll add my own. First, a non-recursive solution that lists only the subdirectories directly under the root directory.
def get_dirlist(rootdir):
dirlist = []
with os.scandir(rootdir) as rit:
for entry in rit:
if not entry.name.startswith('.') and entry.is_dir():
dirlist.append(entry.path)
dirlist.sort() # Optional, in case you want sorted directory names
return dirlist
The recursive version would look like this:
def get_dirlist(rootdir):
dirlist = []
with os.scandir(rootdir) as rit:
for entry in rit:
if not entry.name.startswith('.') and entry.is_dir():
dirlist.append(entry.path)
dirlist += get_dirlist(entry.path)
dirlist.sort() # Optional, in case you want sorted directory names
return dirlist
keep in mind that entry.path
wields the absolute path to the subdirectory. In case you only need the folder name, you can use entry.name
instead. Refer to os.DirEntry for additional details about the entry
object.
using os walk
sub_folders = []
for dir, sub_dirs, files in os.walk(test_folder):
sub_folders.extend(sub_dirs)
For anyone like me who just needed the names of the immediate folders within a directory this worked on Windows.
import os
for f in os.scandir(mypath):
print(f.name)
This will list all subdirectories right down the file tree.
import pathlib
def list_dir(dir):
path = pathlib.Path(dir)
dir = []
try:
for item in path.iterdir():
if item.is_dir():
dir.append(item)
dir = dir + list_dir(item)
return dir
except FileNotFoundError:
print('Invalid directory')
pathlib
is new in version 3.4
Function to return a List of all subdirectories within a given file path. Will search through the entire file tree.
import os
def get_sub_directory_paths(start_directory, sub_directories):
"""
This method iterates through all subdirectory paths of a given
directory to collect all directory paths.
:param start_directory: The starting directory path.
:param sub_directories: A List that all subdirectory paths will be
stored to.
:return: A List of all sub-directory paths.
"""
for item in os.listdir(start_directory):
full_path = os.path.join(start_directory, item)
if os.path.isdir(full_path):
sub_directories.append(full_path)
# Recursive call to search through all subdirectories.
get_sub_directory_paths(full_path, sub_directories)
return sub_directories
we can get list of all the folders by using os.walk()
import os
path = os.getcwd()
pathObject = os.walk(path)
this pathObject is a object and we can get an array by
arr = [x for x in pathObject]
arr is of type [('current directory', [array of folder in current directory], [files in current directory]),('subdirectory', [array of folder in subdirectory], [files in subdirectory]) ....]
We can get list of all the subdirectory by iterating through the arr and printing the middle array
for i in arr:
for j in i[1]:
print(j)
This will print all the subdirectory.
To get all the files:
for i in arr:
for j in i[2]:
print(i[0] + "/" + j)
This function, with a given parent directory
iterates over all its directories
recursively and prints
all the filenames
which it founds inside. Quite useful.
import os
def printDirectoryFiles(directory):
for filename in os.listdir(directory):
full_path=os.path.join(directory, filename)
if not os.path.isdir(full_path):
print( full_path + "\n")
def checkFolders(directory):
dir_list = next(os.walk(directory))[1]
#print(dir_list)
for dir in dir_list:
print(dir)
checkFolders(directory +"/"+ dir)
printDirectoryFiles(directory)
main_dir="C:/Users/S0082448/Desktop/carpeta1"
checkFolders(main_dir)
input("Press enter to exit ;")
use a filter function os.path.isdir
over os.listdir()
something like this filter(os.path.isdir,[os.path.join(os.path.abspath('PATH'),p) for p in os.listdir('PATH/')])
By joining multiple solutions from here, this is what I ended up using:
import os
import glob
def list_dirs(path):
return [os.path.basename(x) for x in filter(
os.path.isdir, glob.glob(os.path.join(path, '*')))]
Lot of nice answers out there but if you came here looking for a simple way to get list of all files or folders at once. You can take advantage of the os offered find on linux and mac which and is much faster than os.walk
import os
all_files_list = os.popen("find path/to/my_base_folder -type f").read().splitlines()
all_sub_directories_list = os.popen("find path/to/my_base_folder -type d").read().splitlines()
OR
import os
def get_files(path):
all_files_list = os.popen(f"find {path} -type f").read().splitlines()
return all_files_list
def get_sub_folders(path):
all_sub_directories_list = os.popen(f"find {path} -type d").read().splitlines()
return all_sub_directories_list
[f for f in data_path.iterdir() if f.is_dir()]
credit: stackoverflow.com/a/44228436/1601580. this gives you as strings folder names. Somehow it also excludes.
and..
thank god. The Glob solution is worthwhile too:glob.glob("/path/to/directory/*/")
.