[Python] Removing a non-empty folder

Removing a non-empty folder

You will get an ‘access is denied’ error when you attempt to use

os.remove(“/folder_name”)

 to delete a folder which is not empty. The most direct and efficient way to remove non-empty folder is like this:

import shutil
shutil.rmtree(“/folder_name”)

Of course you have other ways that might be less efficient such as use os.walk():

# Delete everything reachable from the directory named in 'top', 
# assuming there are no symbolic links. 
# CAUTION:  This is dangerous!  For example, if top == '/', it 
# could delete all your disk files. 
import os 
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(top, topdown=False): 
    for name in files: 
        os.remove(os.path.join(root, name)) 
    for name in dirs: 
        os.rmdir(os.path.join(root, name))