Automate Bulk Folder Compression and Cleanup with Python in Minutes

Introduction

Hello, I am Cui Yanfei. A client needed to compress files in thousands of directories, delete the original files, and keep only the compressed archives. Doing this manually would be time‑consuming, so Python is the perfect tool.

Project Goal

Batch compress the contents of folders to meet the client’s requirements.

Project Preparation

Software: PyCharm

Required libraries: os, shutil, zipfile

Project Analysis

1) How to read source files?

Use the os library to get a list of folder names and loop through them to obtain the files to be compressed.

2) How to perform compression?

Use zipfile.ZipFile() from the zipfile library to compress the obtained files.

3) How to delete source files?

First use os.remove() to delete files, then use shutil.rmtree() to delete empty directories.

Implementation

Step 1: Import required libraries

import os as os
import shutil
import zipfile

Step 2: Define functions for deleting files and compressing directories

def del_(rootdir):
    filelist = []
    filelist = os.listdir(rootdir)  # list all file names in the directory
    for f in filelist:
        filepath = os.path.join(rootdir, f)  # map file name to absolute path
        if os.path.isfile(filepath):  # if it is a file
            os.remove(filepath)  # delete the file
        elif os.path.isdir(filepath):
            shutil.rmtree(filepath, True)  # delete the folder and its contents
    shutil.rmtree(rootdir, True)

def zipDir(dirpath, outFullName):
    zip = zipfile.ZipFile(outFullName, "w", zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
    for path, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(dirpath):
        # remove the base path, compress only files/folders under the target directory
        fpath = path.replace(dirpath, '')
        for filename in filenames:
            zip.write(os.path.join(path, filename), os.path.join(fpath, filename))
    zip.close()

Step 3: Create the main function

def main():
    path_end = 'D:/a/h/'
    date = os.listdir(path_end)  # get list of all sub‑folders
    for f in date:
        ljbc = 'D:/a/h/' + f + '/' + '查询信息.zip'      # compressed file name 1
        ljbc2 = 'D:/a/h/' + f + '/' + '下发修改.zip'    # compressed file name 2
        ljcx = 'D:/a/h/' + f + '/' + '查询信息'        # source folder 1
        ljxf = 'D:/a/h/' + f + '/' + '下发修改'        # source folder 2
        zipDir(ljcx, ljbc)
        zipDir(ljxf, ljbc2)
        del_(ljcx)
        del_(ljxf)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Result Showcase

Processed folders:

Compressed files inside the processed folders:

Conclusion

This article demonstrated how to use Python to batch compress a large number of files with just a few lines of code; once the script runs, the task that would take a person a whole day is completed in under a minute. Life is short—let Python do the heavy lifting!