How to list all files of a directory in Python

os.listdir() will get you everything that's in a directory - files and directories.

If you want just files, you could either filter this down using os.path:

from os import listdir
from os.path import isfile, join
onlyfiles = [f for f in listdir(mypath) if isfile(join(mypath, f))]

or you could use os.walk() which will yield two lists for each directory it visits - splitting into files and dirs for you. If you only want the top directory you can just break the first time it yields

from os import walk

f = []
for (dirpath, dirnames, filenames) in walk(mypath):
    f.extend(filenames)
    break

And lastly, as that example shows, adding one list to another you can either use .extend() or

>>> q = [1, 2, 3]
>>> w = [4, 5, 6]
>>> q = q + w
>>> q
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Personally, I prefer .extend()

I prefer using the glob module, as it does pattern matching and expansion.

import glob
print glob.glob("/home/adam/*.txt")

Will return a list with the queried files:

['/home/adam/file1.txt', '/home/adam/file2.txt', .... ]

import os
os.listdir("somedirectory")

will return a list of all files and directories in "somedirectory".

A one-line solution to get only list of files (no subdirectories):

filenames = next(os.walk(path))[2]

or absolute pathnames:

paths = [os.path.join(path,fn) for fn in next(os.walk(path))[2]]

Getting Full File Paths From a Directory and All Its Subdirectories

import os

def get_filepaths(directory):
    """
    This function will generate the file names in a directory 
    tree by walking the tree either top-down or bottom-up. For each 
    directory in the tree rooted at directory top (including top itself), 
    it yields a 3-tuple (dirpath, dirnames, filenames).
    """
    file_paths = []  # List which will store all of the full filepaths.

    # Walk the tree.
    for root, directories, files in os.walk(directory):
        for filename in files:
            # Join the two strings in order to form the full filepath.
            filepath = os.path.join(root, filename)
            file_paths.append(filepath)  # Add it to the list.

    return file_paths  # Self-explanatory.

# Run the above function and store its results in a variable.   
full_file_paths = get_filepaths("/Users/johnny/Desktop/TEST")

• The path I provided in the above function contained 3 files— two of them in the root directory, and another in a subfolder called "SUBFOLDER." You can now do things like:

• print full_file_paths which will print the list:

  • ['/Users/johnny/Desktop/TEST/file1.txt', '/Users/johnny/Desktop/TEST/file2.txt', '/Users/johnny/Desktop/TEST/SUBFOLDER/file3.dat']

If you'd like, you can open and read the contents, or focus only on files with the extension ".dat" like in the code below:

for f in full_file_paths:

  if f.endswith(".dat"):

    print f

/Users/johnny/Desktop/TEST/SUBFOLDER/file3.dat

I really liked adamk's answer, suggesting that you use glob(), from the module of the same name. This allows you to have pattern matching with *s.

But as other people pointed out in the comments, glob() can get tripped up over inconsistent slash directions. To help with that, I suggest you use the join() and expanduser() functions in the os.path module, and perhaps the getcwd() function in the os module, as well.

As examples:

from glob import glob

# Return everything under C:\Users\admin that contains a folder called wlp.
glob('C:\Users\admin\*\wlp')

The above is terrible - the path has been hardcoded and will only ever work on Windows between the drive name and the \s being hardcoded into the path.

from glob    import glob
from os.path import join

# Return everything under Users, admin, that contains a folder called wlp.
glob(join('Users', 'admin', '*', 'wlp'))

The above works better, but it relies on the folder name Users which is often found on Windows and not so often found on other OSs. It also relies on the user having a specific name, admin.

from glob    import glob
from os.path import expanduser, join

# Return everything under the user directory that contains a folder called wlp.
glob(join(expanduser('~'), '*', 'wlp'))

This works perfectly across all platforms.

Another great example that works perfectly across platforms and does something a bit different:

from glob    import glob
from os      import getcwd
from os.path import join

# Return everything under the current directory that contains a folder called wlp.
glob(join(getcwd(), '*', 'wlp'))

Hope these examples help you see the power of a few of the functions you can find in the standard Python library modules.

def list_files(path):
    # returns a list of names (with extension, without full path) of all files 
    # in folder path
    files = []
    for name in os.listdir(path):
        if os.path.isfile(os.path.join(path, name)):
            files.append(name)
    return files 

pathlib: New in version 3.4.

>>> import pathlib
>>> [p for p in pathlib.Path('.').iterdir() if p.is_file()]

os.scandir(): New in version 3.5.

>>> import os
>>> [entry for entry in os.scandir('.') if entry.is_file()]

You should use os module for listing directory content.os.listdir(".") returns all the contents of the directory. We iterate over the result and append to the list.

import os

content_list = []

for content in os.listdir("."): # "." means current directory
    content_list.append(content)

print content_list

import os
lst=os.listdir(path)

os.listdir returns a list containing the names of the entries in the directory given by path.

If you are looking for python implementation of find, this is a recipe I use rather frequently:

from findtools.find_files import (find_files, Match)

# Recursively find all *.sh files in **/usr/bin**
sh_files_pattern = Match(filetype='f', name='*.sh')
found_files = find_files(path='/usr/bin', match=sh_files_pattern)

for found_file in found_files:
    print found_file

so I made a PyPI package out of it and there is also a github repository. I hope that someone finds it potentially useful for his code.

Returning a list of absolute filepaths, does not recurse into subdirectories

L = [os.path.join(os.getcwd(),f) for f in os.listdir('.') if os.path.isfile(os.path.join(os.getcwd(),f))]

Python 3.5 introduced new, faster method for walking through the directory - os.scandir().

Example:

for file in os.scandir('/usr/bin'):
    line = ''
    if file.is_file():
        line += 'f'
    elif file.is_dir():
        line += 'd'
    elif file.is_symlink():
        line += 'l'
    line += '\t'
    print("{}{}".format(line, file.name))

List all files in a directory:

import os
from os import path

files = [x for x in os.listdir(directory_path) if path.isfile(directory_path+os.sep+x)]

Here, you get list of all files in a directory.

# -** coding: utf-8 -*-
import os
import traceback

print '\n\n'

def start():
    address = "/home/ubuntu/Desktop"
    try:
        Folders = []
        Id = 1
        for item in os.listdir(address):
            endaddress = address + "/" + item
            Folders.append({'Id': Id, 'TopId': 0, 'Name': item, 'Address': endaddress })
            Id += 1         

            state = 0
            for item2 in os.listdir(endaddress):
                state = 1
            if state == 1: 
                Id = FolderToList(endaddress, Id, Id - 1, Folders)
        return Folders
    except:
        print "___________________________ ERROR ___________________________\n" + traceback.format_exc()

def FolderToList(address, Id, TopId, Folders):
    for item in os.listdir(address):
        endaddress = address + "/" + item
        Folders.append({'Id': Id, 'TopId': TopId, 'Name': item, 'Address': endaddress })
        Id += 1

        state = 0
        for item in os.listdir(endaddress):
            state = 1
        if state == 1: 
            Id = FolderToList(endaddress, Id, Id - 1, Folders)
    return Id

print start()

Python 3: for the list of files in the current work directory

>>> import os
>>> for file in os.listdir():
...     print(file)

to include them in a list, just:

x = [f for f in os.listdir()]

If you want to have the list of a particular directory, not the directory where the terminal (or cmd) is:

>>> files = os.listdir('G:/python')
>>> for file in files:
        print(file)

>>> x = [f for f in os.listdir('G:/python')]

Python 2 works differently...

>>> import os
>>> for f in os.listdir(os.getcwd):
...     print f

>>> # create a list
>>> x = [f for f in os.listdir(os.getcwd())] # the current dir

The code above will print all the files in the current directory The same here:

>>> import os
>>> for f in os.listdir('.'):
...     print f

>>> # create a list
>>> x = [f for f in os.listdir('.')] # the current dir

To go up in the directory tree, you got to code like this:

>>> for f in os.listdir(..):
...     print f


>>> # create a list
>>> x = [f for f in os.listdir('..')] # the precedent dir

and this...

>>> for f in os.listdir('/'):
...    print f

>>> # create a list
>>> x = [f for f in os.listdir('/')] # the root dir

... this will print all the files in the root directory

>>> x = [f for f in os.listdir('F:/python')] # a dir...

If you care about performance, try scandir, for Python 2.x, you may need to install it manually. Examples:

# python 2.x
import scandir
import sys

de = scandir.scandir(sys.argv[1])
while 1:
    try:
        d = de.next()
        print d.path
    except StopIteration as _:
        break

This save a lot of time when you need to scan a huge directory, you do not need to buffer a huge list, just fetch one by one. And also you can do it recursively:

def scan_path(path):
    de = scandir.scandir(path)
    while 1:
        try:
            e = de.next()
            if e.is_dir():
                scan_path(e.path)
            else:
                print e.path
        except StopIteration as _:
                break

import dircache
list = dircache.listdir(pathname)
i = 0
check = len(list[0])
temp = []
count = len(list)
while count != 0:
  if len(list[i]) != check:
     temp.append(list[i-1])
     check = len(list[i])
  else:
    i = i + 1
    count = count - 1

print temp

Use this function if you want to different file type or get full directory.

import os
def createList(foldername, fulldir = True, suffix=".jpg"):
    file_list_tmp = os.listdir(foldername)
    #print len(file_list_tmp)
    file_list = []
    if fulldir:
        for item in file_list_tmp:
            if item.endswith(suffix):
                file_list.append(os.path.join(foldername, item))
    else:
        for item in file_list_tmp:
            if item.endswith(suffix):
                file_list.append(item)
    return file_list

By using os library.

import os
for root, dirs,files in os.walk("your dir path", topdown=True):
    for name in files:
        print(os.path.join(root, name))

Using generators

import os
def get_files(path):
     for (dirpath, _, filenames) in os.walk('.'):
         for filename in filenames:
             yield os.path.join(dirpath, filename)
list_files = get_files('.')
for filename in list_files:
    print(filename)