Check if a file type is a media file?

Question

I am trying to loop through a list of files, and return those files that are media files (images, video, gif, audio, etc.).

Seeing as there are a lot of media types, is there a library or perhaps better way to check this, than listing all types then checking a file against that list?

Here's what I'm doing so far:

import os
types = [".mp3", ".mpeg", ".gif", ".jpg", ".jpeg"]
files = ["test.mp3", "test.tmp", "filename.mpg", ".AutoConfig"]

media_files = []
for file in files:
    root, extention = os.path.splitext(file)
    print(extention)
    if extention in types:
        media_files.append(file)

print("Found media files are:")
print(media_files)

But note it didn't include filename.mpg, since I forgot to put .mpg in my types list. (Or, more likely, I didn't expect that list to include a .mpg file, so didn't think to list it out.)

Answer 1

For this purpose you need to get internet media type for file, split it by / character and check if it starts with audio,video,image.

Here is a sample code:

import mimetypes
mimetypes.init()

mimestart = mimetypes.guess_type("test.mp3")[0]

if mimestart != None:
    mimestart = mimestart.split('/')[0]

    if mimestart in ['audio', 'video', 'image']:
        print("media types")

NOTE: This method assume the file type by its extension and don't open the actual file, it is based only on the file extension.

Creating a module

If you want to create a module that checks if the file is a media file you need to call the init function at the start of the module.

Here is an example of how to create the module:

ismediafile.py

import mimetypes
mimetypes.init()

def isMediaFile(fileName):
    mimestart = mimetypes.guess_type(fileName)[0]

    if mimestart != None:
        mimestart = mimestart.split('/')[0]

        if mimestart in ['audio', 'video', 'image']:
            return True
    
    return False

and there how to use it:

main.py

from ismediafile import isMediaFile

if __name__ == "__main__":
    if isMediaFile("test.mp3"):
        print("Media file")
    else:
        print("not media file")