Deleting files by type in Python on Windows

Question

I know how to delete single files, however I am lost in my implementation of how to delete all files in a directory of one type.

Say the directory is \\myfolder

Answer 1

I would do something like the following:

import os
files = os.listdir("myfolder")
for f in files:
  if not os.path.isdir(f) and ".config" in f:
    os.remove(f)

It lists the files in a directory and if it's not a directory and the filename has ".config" anywhere in it, delete it. You'll either need to be in the same directory as myfolder, or give it the full path to the directory. If you need to do this recursively, I would use the os.walk function.

Answer 2

Here ya go:

import os

# Return all files in dir, and all its subdirectories, ending in pattern
def gen_files(dir, pattern):
   for dirname, subdirs, files in os.walk(dir):
      for f in files:
         if f.endswith(pattern):
            yield os.path.join(dirname, f)


# Remove all files in the current dir matching *.config
for f in gen_files('.', '.config'):
   os.remove(f)

Note also that gen_files can be easily rewritten to accept a tuple of patterns, since str.endswith accepts a tuple

Answer 3

Use the glob module:

import os
from glob import glob

for f in glob ('myfolder/*.config'):
   os.unlink (f)