How To Delete CSV File In Python

In this tutorial, you will learn how to delete a CSV file in Python using the os module. This is a very simple process, and you can easily adapt it to any other types of files. CSV files are widely used for data manipulation and storage and it’s common that you might need to remove them once their content is processed or obsolete.

Step 1 – Import the required modules

First, let’s import the os module that we’re going to use to perform the file deletion operation. The os module provides a way of using operating system dependent functionality, in our case the file manipulation methods.

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import os

Step 2 – Locate the CSV file

In order to delete a file, you must provide the file path. A file path is the address that specifies the location of a file within your computer or remote server. For better handling and reusability of the code, we will store the file path in a variable.

For example, let’s assume our CSV file is called data.csv and is located at the root of our project directory.

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csv_file_path = 'data.csv'

Step 3 – Check if the file exists

It is always a good practice to check if the file exists before trying to delete it. If you try to delete a non-existing file, it will raise a FileNotFoundError. Use the os.path.exists() function to check for the presence of the file.

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if os.path.exists(csv_file_path):
    print("File found")
else:
    print("File not found")

Step 4 – Delete the CSV file

To delete the CSV file, use the os.remove() function. This method takes one parameter, which is the path of the file you want to remove.

You should include the deletion method inside an if statement that checks if the file exists to prevent unexpected errors.

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if os.path.exists(csv_file_path):
    os.remove(csv_file_path)
    print("File deleted successfully")
else:
    print("File not found")

Full Code

Here’s the complete code to delete a CSV file in Python:

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import os
 
csv_file_path = 'data.csv'
 
if os.path.exists(csv_file_path):
    os.remove(csv_file_path)
    print("File deleted successfully")
else:
    print("File not found")

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you have learned how to delete a CSV file in Python using the os module. You have also learned how to check whether the file exists before trying to delete it to prevent errors. This method can be useful when working with larger projects or when automating various data processing tasks where you need to clean up your working directory after the processing is finished.