A function to copy folder along with its contents python

Question

Hi is there a function that copies a parent folder along with all its content to a specified destination in python.

I have used different functions but they seem to copy the contents excluding the parent folder.

Many thanks

Answer 1

shutil.copytree comes to mind immediately, but your issue is that copying directory foo in bar doesn't create bar/foo.

My proposal:

import shutil,os

def copytree2(source,dest):
    os.mkdir(dest)
    dest_dir = os.path.join(dest,os.path.basename(source))
    shutil.copytree(source,dest_dir)

• first create destination
• then generate destination dir, which is the destination added source basename
• perform copytree with the new destination, so source folder name level appears under dest

There's no subtle check about dest directory already exist or whatnot. I'll let you add that if needed (using os.path.isdir(dest) for instance)

Note that functions from shutil come with a note which encourages users to copy and modify them to better suit their needs.

Answer 2

In python 3.* we can use shutil

import shutil

old_folder = "D:/old_folder"
new_folder = "D:/new_folder"
shutil.copytree(old_folder, new_folder, dirs_exist_ok=True)

dirs_exist_ok=True is for ignoring the exception when the folder already exists in the new location.