Python Remove/Delete Non-Empty Folder

Are you getting OSError the directory is not empty error when deleting a non-empty folder using the os.rmdir() method? The os.rmdir() method is helpful to delete only empty folders.

In this article, we will use the shutil module to remove the non-empty directory or folder. The directory may have nested subdirectories many levels deep.

Shutil rmtree() to Delete Non-Empty Directory

The shutil module offers various methods to perform high-level operations on files and collections of files, such as file copying and file removal in Python.

Here we will see how to delete non-empty directories or folders in Python using the shutil.rmtree('path') function.

shutil.rmtree(path, ignore_errors=False, onerror=None)

• The rmtree(‘path’) deletes an entire directory tree (including subdirectories under it).
• The path must point to a directory (but not a symbolic link to a directory).
• Set ignore_errors to True if you want to ignore the errors resulting from failed removal. Please set it to False to know the reason behind failed removal.
• If the ignore_errors parameter is omitted, you need to handle errors using try-except by calling a handler specified by the onerror class.

Example

Let’s see how to delete a non-empty ‘account’ folder present in our drive.

import shutil

# remove old account directory
shutil.rmtree(r'E:\demos\files_demos\accounts_old')

Output:

import shutil

# remove old account directory
shutil.rmtree(r'E:\demos\files_demos\accounts_old', ignore_errors=True)

Delete Non-Empty Directory with Read-Only Files

• As we discussed, The shutil.rmtree() will fail to delete the directory containing any read-only files.
• Note: ignore_errors=True does not guarantee the directory will be deleted. There could be a PermissionError.
• If you set ignore_errors to True, it will delete all other files except read-only files from a directory. (Directory is still present but only with read-only files).
• Set ignore_errors to False to know the reasons behind failed removals.

Use the onerror parameter of a shutil.rmtree() function to delete an entire directory that contains some read-only files.

We need to write a custom function and assign it to the onerror parameter. This custom function uses the onerror callback to clear the read-only bit from a read-only file and again reattempt the remove.

Example:

import os
import shutil
import stat

# remove directory with read-only files
def rm_dir_readonly(func, path, _):
    "Clear the readonly bit and reattempt the removal"
    os.chmod(path, stat.S_IWRITE)
    func(path)

shutil.rmtree(r'E:\demos\files_demos\accounts_old', onerror=rm_dir_readonly)