How to merge multiple folders into one folder using Python ?

Last Updated : 28 Apr, 2021

In this article, we will discuss how to move multiple folders into one folder. This can be done using Python's OS and Shutil module.

Approach:

Get the current directory and the list of the folders you want to merge.
Loop through the list of folders and store their content in a list. Here, we have stored them in the dictionary so that we can have the name of the folder as a key and its content as a value list.
Specify the folder in which you want to merge all the other folders. If the folder exists then we are good to go but if the folder does not exist then create a new folder.
Loop through the dictionary and move all the content of all the listed folders inside the merge folder.

Let's implement this approach step by step:

Step 1: Below code does the following:

Get the current directory.
List all the folders that you want to merge.
Stores content of all the listed folders in the dictionary with folder name as key and its content as a value list.

Python3

# current folder path
current_folder = os.getcwd() 

# list of folders to be merged
list_dir = ['Folder 1', 'Folder 2', 'Folder 3']

# enumerate on list_dir to get the 
# content of all the folders ans store it in a dictionary
content_list = {}
for index, val in enumerate(list_dir):
    path = os.path.join(current_folder, val)
    content_list[ list_dir[index] ] = os.listdir(path)

Step 2: Creates the merge folder if it does not already exist.

Python3

# Function to create new folder if not exists
def make_new_folder(folder_name, parent_folder_path):
    
    # Path
    path = os.path.join(parent_folder_path, folder_name)
    
    # Create the folder
    # 'new_folder' in
    # parent_folder
    try: 
      
        # mode of the folder
        mode = 0o777

        # Create folder
        os.mkdir(path, mode) 
        
    except OSError as error: 
        print(error)

# folder in which all the content 
# will be merged
merge_folder = "merge_folder"

# merge_folder path - current_folder 
# + merge_folder
merge_folder_path = os.path.join(current_folder, merge_folder) 

# create merge_folder if not exists
make_new_folder(merge_folder, current_folder)

Step 3: Below code does the following:

Loop through the dictionary with all the folders.
Now loop through the content of each folder and one by one move them to the merge folder.

Python3

# loop through the list of folders
for sub_dir in content_list:

    # loop through the contents of the
    # list of folders
    for contents in content_list[sub_dir]:

        # make the path of the content to move 
        path_to_content = sub_dir + "/" + contents  

        # make the path with the current folder
        dir_to_move = os.path.join(current_folder, path_to_content )

        # move the file
        shutil.move(dir_to_move, merge_folder_path)

Complete Code:

Python3

import shutil
import os


# Function to create new folder if not exists
def make_new_folder(folder_name, parent_folder):
    
    # Path
    path = os.path.join(parent_folder, folder_name)
    
    # Create the folder
    # 'new_folder' in
    # parent_folder
    try: 
        # mode of the folder
        mode = 0o777

        # Create folder
        os.mkdir(path, mode) 
    except OSError as error: 
        print(error)

# current folder path
current_folder = os.getcwd() 

# list of folders to be merged
list_dir = ['Folder 1', 'Folder 2', 'Folder 3']

# enumerate on list_dir to get the 
# content of all the folders ans store 
# it in a dictionary
content_list = {}
for index, val in enumerate(list_dir):
    path = os.path.join(current_folder, val)
    content_list[ list_dir[index] ] = os.listdir(path)

# folder in which all the content will
# be merged
merge_folder = "merge_folder"

# merge_folder path - current_folder 
# + merge_folder
merge_folder_path = os.path.join(current_folder, merge_folder) 

# create merge_folder if not exists
make_new_folder(merge_folder, current_folder)

# loop through the list of folders
for sub_dir in content_list:

    # loop through the contents of the 
    # list of folders
    for contents in content_list[sub_dir]:

        # make the path of the content to move 
        path_to_content = sub_dir + "/" + contents  

        # make the path with the current folder
        dir_to_move = os.path.join(current_folder, path_to_content )

        # move the file
        shutil.move(dir_to_move, merge_folder_path)

Folder structure before running the above program.

Folder 1
    File 1
    File 2
Folder 2
    File 3
    File 4
Folder 3
    File 5
    File 6
Folder 4
    File 7
    File 8
merge_folder (Empty)
move_script.py

Folder structure after running the above program.

Folder 1 (Empty)
Folder 2 (Empty)
Folder 3 (Empty)
Folder 4 (Untouched)
    File 7
    File 8
merge_folder
    File 1
    File 2
    File 3
    File 4
    File 5
    File 6
move_script.py

Program in Working :