Copy a directory recursively using Python (with examples)

20 Jul, 2021
Shutil module in Python provides many functions of high-level operations on files and collections of files. It comes under Python’s standard utility modules. This module helps in automating process of copying and removal of files and directories.shutil.copytree() method recursively copies an entire directory tree rooted at source (src) to the destination directory. The destination directory, named by (dst) must not already exist. It will be created during copying. Permissions and times of directories are copied with copystat() and individual files are copied using shutil.copy2().
Syntax: shutil.copytree(src, dst, symlinks = False, ignore = None, copy_function = copy2, ignore_dangling_symlinks = False)Parameters: src: A string representing the path of the source directory. dest: A string representing the path of the destination. symlinks (optional): This parameter accepts True or False, depending on which the metadata of the original links or linked links will be copied to the new tree. ignore (optional): If ignore is given, it must be a callable that will receive as its arguments the directory being visited by copytree(), and a list of its contents, as returned by os.listdir(). copy_function (optional): The default value of this parameter is copy2. We can use other copy function like copy() for this parameter. ignore_dangling_symlinks (optional): This parameter value when set to True is used to put a silence on the exception raised if the file pointed by the symlink doesn’t exist.Return Value: This method returns a string which represents the path of newly created directory.  
Example: Suppose the directory looks like this. 
We want to copy the folder ‘src’ to a new folder ‘dst’. Below is the implementation.
Python3
# Python program to explain shutil.copytree() method          # importing shutil module import shutil     # path path = 'D:/Pycharm projects/GeeksforGeeks/'     # Source path src = 'D:/Pycharm projects/GeeksforGeeks/src'    # Destination path dest = 'D:/Pycharm projects/GeeksforGeeks/dst'    # Copy the content of # source to destination destination = shutil.copytree(src, dest)     # print(destination) prints the# path of newly created file
Output:
Tweaking the above code by a little bit allows us to copy both files or directories. This can be done using copytree() function and a try-except block. We will catch the exception and if the exception is ENOTDIR then we will use copy2() function to copy the files. Doing this allows us to copy both files and directories using a single code.
Let’s suppose the destination directory looks like this.
We want to copy a text file present in the src folder to this destination folder. Below is the implementation. 
Python3
# Python program to demonstrate# shutil.copytree()  # Importing moduleimport shutilimport errno # Source pathsrc = 'D:/Pycharm projects/GeeksforGeeks/src/b/test_b.txt' # Destination pathdest = 'D:/Pycharm projects/GeeksforGeeks/dst' # Copy the content of# source to destinationtry:    shutil.copytree(src, dest)except OSError as err:     # error caused if the source was not a directory    if err.errno == errno.ENOTDIR:        shutil.copy2(src, dest)    else:        print("Error: % s" % err)
Output:
Sometimes, while copying a directory to another directory, one may not want to copy the some files or sub-directories. Even this is handled by the shutil module. The function copytree() takes the argument ignore that allows specifying a function that returns a list of directories or files that should be ignored. This function takes the file or directory name as an argument which acts as a filter for names. If the argument passed is in names, then it is added to a list that specifies the copytree() which file or directory to skip.
Example: Suppose the source folder looks like this. 
We want to copy the contents of above folder with the folder ‘a’. Below is the implementation. 
Python3
# Python program to demonstrate# shutil.copytree()  # importing modulesimport shutil # Declaring the ignore functiondef ignoreFunc(file):    def _ignore_(path, names):                 # List containing names of file        # that are needed to ignore        ignored = []                 # check if file in names        # then add it to list        if file in names:            ignored.append(file)        return set(ignored)             return _ignore_      # Source path src = 'D:/Pycharm projects /GeeksforGeeks/src' # Destination path dest = 'D:/Pycharm projects/GeeksforGeeks/dst' # Copying the contents from Source# to Destination without some# specified files or directoriesshutil.copytree(src, dest, ignore = ignoreFunc('a'))
Output:
To remove more than one file or a file with a particular format, shutil.ignore_patterns is used. This function is passed as an argument to the copytree() method that specifies the glob patterns to filter out the files and directories. 
Example: We will use the above source folder as an example and will not copy any .txt file and folder ‘a’. Below is the implementation. 
Python3
# Python program to demonstrate# shutil.copytree()  # importing modulesimport shutil # Source path src = 'D:/Pycharm projects/GeeksforGeeks/src' # Destination path dest = 'D:/Pycharm projects/GeeksforGeeks/dst' # Copying the contents from Source# to Destination without some# specified files or directoriesshutil.copytree(src, dest, ignore = shutil.ignore_patterns('*.txt', 'a'))
Output:
 
singghakshay
gulshankumarar231
sumitgumber28
gabaa406
Python file-handling-programs
python-file-handling
Python
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