PermissionError: [WinError 32] The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process

Question

My code is for a script that looks at a folder and deletes images that are under a resolution of 1920x1080. The problem I am having is that when my code runs;

import os
from PIL import Image

while True:    
    img_dir = r"C:\Users\Harold\Google Drive\wallpapers"
    for filename in os.listdir(img_dir):
        filepath = os.path.join(img_dir, filename)
        im = Image.open(filepath)
        x, y = im.size
        totalsize = x*y
        if totalsize < 2073600:
            os.remove(filepath)

I get this error message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Harold\Desktop\imagefilter.py", line 12, in <module>
    os.remove(filepath)
PermissionError: [WinError 32] The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process: 'C:\\Users\\Harold\\Google Drive\\wallpapers\\Car - ABT Audi RS6-R [OS] [1600x1060].jpg'

Just to confirm, Python is the only program running on my computer. What is causing this problem and how do I fix it?

Answer 1

Your process is the one that has the file open (via im still existing). You need to close it first before deleting it.

I don't know if PIL supports with contexts, but if it did:

import os
from PIL import Image

while True:    
    img_dir = r"C:\Users\Harold\Google Drive\wallpapers"
    for filename in os.listdir(img_dir):
        filepath = os.path.join(img_dir, filename)
        with Image.open(filepath) as im:
            x, y = im.size
        totalsize = x*y
        if totalsize < 2073600:
            os.remove(filepath)

This will make sure to delete im (and close the file) before you get to os.remove.

If it doesn't you might want to check out Pillow, since PIL development is pretty much dead.

Answer 2

I was running into the same problem, but the error was intermittent. If you are coding your file open/close correctly and still running into this error, make sure you are not synching the files with Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. I paused Dropbox and I no longer see the error.

Answer 3

This is basically permission error, you just need to close the file before removing it. After getting the image size info, close the image with

im.close()