How to check if a file or directory or link exists in Python ? Let us look at some examples one by one: And available on Python 2 and 3 versions. It assumes you already have the os module imported by using import os. Methods to check if a file exists in Python. Keep this possibility in mind while using this method. 2. The pathlib module in Python comes with some interesting methods like is_file(), is_dir(), exists(), etc. In this example, we will learn how to check if a file exists and then delete it in Python. Check if File can be Read. Mkyong.com is providing Java and Spring tutorials and code snippets since 2008. The following example the os.path.isfile() method of os module is used to check the file exists or not. Python : How to copy files from one location to another using shutil.copy() How to change current working directory in python ? Check if a File Exists with a Try Block. When checking if a file exists, often it is performed right before accessing (reading and/or writing) a file. If you want to check if a file exists at a given path, use the standard path notation '/file/at/path/file.txt' as a prefix. Python: Check whether a file exists using Python Last update on September 01 2020 10:27:54 (UTC/GMT +8 hours) Check if Item Exists in a Set. The method os.path.exists('file.txt') returns True if the file 'file.txt' exists, and False otherwise. These functions are available on Python 2 and 3, and they’re usually the first suggestion that comes up when you consult the Python docs or a search engine on how to solve this problem. If that succeeds I return True. A file can be read if it exists and has read permission for the user. [/donotprint]You can easily check if a file exists, in a current directory using the following python syntax: os.path.isfile(filename) Next, you can use the following syntax to delete the file: So I go to read the first byte of the file with . Here are different ways to accomplish this. If the file is found, it is deleted by using the unlink() function. Check if file exists using os.path.isfile(): os module contains different methods to check any file or directory exists or not. Way 2: Using os.path isfile function. let’s see the example/demo use of os.path.exists(). There can be file and directory with the same name. This command simply checks whether a file exists on your file system. Python is a easy to use language and does not require huge lines of code to perform simple operations. Checking if a file or directory exists using Python is definitely one of those cases. Check if the file exists before appending/writing to it. Similarly it is providing os.path module to manipulate the path of the directories and files.. os.path.isdir(path) to check directory exists