How to synchronize two folders using python script

Saqib Shakeel picture Saqib Shakeel · Feb 14, 2019 · Viewed 8.8k times · Source

Currently, I am working on a project in which am synchronizing two folders. My folders in the following example names ad Folder_1 as source and Folder_2 as destination I want to do the following things.

  1. If files which are present in Folder_1 are not present in Folder_2, copy the files from folder_1 to Folder_2 and Vice Versa.
  2. If I rename any file in either folder, it gets updated in the other folder instead of copying a new file with the updated name.
  3. if I delete any file from any folder, it should get deleted from the other folder as well.

I have done half the part of point one in which I am able to copy the files from Folder_1 to Folder_2. Send part where I could be able to copy files from Folder_2 to folder_1 is still remaining.

Following is my code

import os, shutil
path = 'C:/Users/saqibshakeel035/Desktop/Folder_1/'
copyto = 'C:/Users/saqibshakeel035/Desktop/Folder_2/'

files =os.listdir(path)
files.sort()
for f in files:
        src = path+f
        dst = copyto+f
        try:
                if os.stat(src).st_mtime < os.stat(dst).st_mtime:
                        continue
        except OSError:
                        pass
                        shutil.copy(src,dst)#this is the case when our file in destination doesn't exist
                               =
print('Files copied from'+ path +'to' + copyto+ '!')

What can I amend or do so that I can synchronize both folders completely? Thanks in advance :)

Answer

MPatel1 picture MPatel1 · Aug 27, 2019

(Not the same approach as yours but gets the work done as expected from your query)

Simple code using dirsync:

from dirsync import sync
source_path = '/Give/Source/Folder/Here'
target_path = '/Give/Target/Folder/Here'

sync(source_path, target_path, 'sync') #for syncing one way
sync(target_path, source_path, 'sync') #for syncing the opposite way

See documentation here for more options: dirsync - PyPI

You can, of course, add exception handling manually if you want.