Python - Move and overwrite files and folders

Question

I have a directory, \'Dst Directory\', which has files and folders in it and I have \'src Directory\' which also has files and folders in it. What I want to do is move the conte

Answer 1

I had a similar problem. I wanted to move files and folder structures and overwrite existing files, but not delete anything which is in the destination folder structure.

I solved it by using os.walk(), recursively calling my function and using shutil.move() on files which I wanted to overwrite and folders which did not exist.

It works like shutil.move(), but with the benefit that existing files are only overwritten, but not deleted.

import os
import shutil

def moverecursively(source_folder, destination_folder):
    basename = os.path.basename(source_folder)
    dest_dir = os.path.join(destination_folder, basename)
    if not os.path.exists(dest_dir):
        shutil.move(source_folder, destination_folder)
    else:
        dst_path = os.path.join(destination_folder, basename)
        for root, dirs, files in os.walk(source_folder):
            for item in files:
                src_path = os.path.join(root, item)
                if os.path.exists(dst_file):
                    os.remove(dst_file)
                shutil.move(src_path, dst_path)
            for item in dirs:
                src_path = os.path.join(root, item)
                moverecursively(src_path, dst_path)