Shutil

Python · Reference cheat sheet

📋 Overview

shutil is high-level file operations: copy, move, delete trees, find executables, and check disk space. Prefer it over hand-rolled recursive delete/copy. Pair with pathlib for path construction.

🔧 Core concepts

💡 Examples

Copy and move:

import shutil
from pathlib import Path

src = Path("report.txt")
shutil.copy(src, "backup/report.txt")       # file → file/dir
shutil.copy2(src, "backup/report_meta.txt")
shutil.move("backup/report.txt", "archive/report.txt")

Remove a tree safely:

import shutil
from pathlib import Path

build = Path("build")
if build.exists():
    shutil.rmtree(build)
build.mkdir()

which + disk_usage:

import shutil

print(shutil.which("python"), shutil.which("git"))
usage = shutil.disk_usage(".")
print(f"free={usage.free / 1e9:.1f} GB of {usage.total / 1e9:.1f} GB")

copytree with dirs_exist_ok (3.8+):

import shutil

shutil.copytree("templates", "out/templates", dirs_exist_ok=True)

⚠️ Pitfalls

• rmtree is irreversible — confirm the path; no recycle bin.
• copy overwrites existing destination files without asking.
• copytree fails if dst exists unless dirs_exist_ok=True.
• which returns None if not found — check before subprocess.
• On Windows, open files can block rmtree / move.

🔗 Related

• Pathlib
• Files I/O
• Os
• Tempfile
• Glob