Master Python’s shutil: Copy, Move, Delete & Archive Files with Ease

What is shutil

shutil can be understood as sh + util, meaning a shell utility. The shutil module supplements the os module, mainly for copying, deleting, moving, compressing, and extracting files.

Key Methods of shutil

shutil.copyfileobj(fsrc, fdst[, length=16*1024])

Copies file contents to another file, optionally specifying the size. This method is the basis for other copy functions.

def copyfileobj(fsrc, fdst, length=16*1024):
    while 1:
        buf = fsrc.read(length)
        if not buf:
            break
        fdst.write(buf)

Note: fsrc and fdst must be file objects opened with open().

import shutil
s = open('fsrc.txt','r')
d = open('fdst.txt','w')
shutil.copyfileobj(s, d, length=16*1024)

shutil.copyfile(src, dst)

Copies a file.

shutil.copyfile('f1.log', 'f2.log')  # destination file need not exist

shutil.copymode(src, dst)

Copies only the permission bits; content, group, and user remain unchanged.

shutil.copymode('f1.log', 'f2.log')  # destination must exist

shutil.copystat(src, dst)

Copies status information such as mode bits, atime, mtime, and flags.

shutil.copystat('f1.log', 'f2.log')  # destination must exist

shutil.copy(src, dst)

Copies a file along with its permissions.

import shutil
shutil.copy('f1.log', 'f2.log')

shutil.copy2(src, dst)

Copies a file and its metadata.

import shutil
shutil.copy2('f1.log', 'f2.log')

shutil.copytree(src, dst, symlinks=False, ignore=None)

Recursively copies an entire directory tree.

src: source directory

dst: destination directory (created automatically; must not already exist)

symlinks: whether to copy symbolic links (True) or ignore them (False, default)

ignore: pattern(s) to ignore, e.g., ignore_patterns() copy_function: function used to copy files, default is copy2 (Python 3 added)

ignore_dangling_symlinks: if False, copying a broken symlink raises an error; set True to ignore.

import shutil, os
folder1 = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), "aaa")
folder2 = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), "bbb", "ccc")
shutil.copytree(folder1, folder2, ignore=shutil.ignore_patterns("abc.txt", "bcd.txt"))

shutil.rmtree(path[, ignore_errors[, onerror]])

Recursively deletes a directory tree.

import shutil
shutil.rmtree('folder1')

shutil.move(src, dst)

Recursively moves a file or directory, similar to the Unix mv command.

import shutil
shutil.move('folder1', 'folder3')

shutil.make_archive(base_name, format[, root_dir[, base_dir, ...]])

Creates an archive (e.g., zip, tar) and returns its file path.

base_name: name or path of the archive

format: archive type such as "zip", "tar", "bztar", "gztar"

root_dir: directory to archive (default current directory)

base_dir: directory within the archive

owner, group: user and group for the archive (default current)

logger: logging.Logger instance for logging

import shutil
shutil.make_archive('copy', 'zip')

Conclusion

This article introduced Python’s shutil module and detailed its main functions, providing code examples and explanations to help readers understand and apply file operations in real projects.