How to remove all empty files within a folder and its subfolders in Python?

By Nikhil Vaddipati

Hello everyone, in this tutorial we are going to learn about deleting all empty files in a folder using python, This helps us in saving time as manually deleting the files take a lot of time.

Delete empty files using os library

Let’s consider a folder named sample.

The sample consists of a subfolder named “sub” and an empty text file named “empty1.txt”.The subfolder “sub” consists of another empty text file “empty2.txt”.The structure of the “sample” folder is given below:

sample-(folder)

—>empty1.txt

—>sub(folder)  —> empty2.txt-(text file)

Our objective is to delete empty files in the “sample” folder and empty files in its subfolders.

Functions/Methods used in the code:

• os.walk(path)
• os.path.isfile()
• os.path.getsize()
• os.remove()

Learn more about os library OS Module in Python

CODE

import os
def remove_empty(path):
    print(list(os.walk(path)))
    for (dirpath, folder_names, files) in os.walk(path):
        for filename in files:
            file_location = dirpath + '/' + filename  #file location is location is the location of the file
            if os.path.isfile(file_location):
                if os.path.getsize(file_location) == 0:#Checking if the file is empty or not
                    os.remove(file_location)  #If the file is empty then it is deleted using remove method

if __name__ == "__main__":
    path = 'C:/Users/nikk/Desktop/sample' #Location of the folder
    remove_empty(path)  # Calling the function

Output

After executing the above code, the empty files "empty1.txt" and "empty2.txt" are deleted from the folder

Also read:  Delete only empty folders in Python