How to Delete files in Python using send2trash module?

Last Updated : 16 Jul, 2020

In this article, we will see how to safely delete files and folders using the send2trash module in Python. Using send2trash, we can send files to the Trash or Recycle Bin instead of permanently deleting them. The OS module’s unlink(), remove() and rmdir() functions can be used to delete files or folders. But, these functions delete the files permanently. The operations cannot be undone if there were any accidental deletions performed. This can be prevented using send2trash.

Modules required

OS : The OS module in Python provides functions for interacting with the operating system. OS module comes with Python’s Standard Library.
send2trash : Send2Trash is a small package that sends files to the Trash (or Recycle Bin) natively and on all platforms. To install it type the below command in the terminal.

pip install send2trash

Deleting a file or folder

The send2trash() function accepts the location of the file or folder to be deleted.

Python3

import send2trash 
  
send2trash.send2trash("/location/to/file")

The process of deleting a directory is same as above. If the directory contains files or other folders, those are also deleted. A TrashPermissionError exception is raised, in case a file could not be deleted due to permission error or any other unexpected reason.

Deleting specific files in a directory

We can use the os.walk() function to walk through a directory and delete specific files. In the example below, we will delete all ‘.txt’ files in the given directory.

Python3

import os 
import send2trash 
  
# walking through the directory 
for folder, subfolders, files in os.walk('/Users/tithighosh/Documents'): 
      
    for file in files: 
        
        # checking if file is 
        # of .txt type 
        if file.endswith('.txt'): 
            path = os.path.join(folder, file) 
              
            # printing the path of the file 
            # to be deleted 
            print('deleted : ', path ) 
              
            # deleting the file 
            send2trash.send2trash(path)

Output :

deleted :  /Users/tithighosh/Documents/cfile.txt
deleted :  /Users/tithighosh/Documents/e_also_big_output.txt
deleted :  /Users/tithighosh/Documents/res.txt
deleted :  /Users/tithighosh/Documents/tk.txt