Rename a File using Python

The os module can be used to rename a file using Python:

import os

os.rename(r"Directory path\OLD_file_name.file_type", 
          r"Directory path\NEW_file_name.file_type")

Steps to Rename a File using Python

Suppose that your goal is to rename a text file from “cars” to “trucks“

Here are the steps that you may follow to rename your file:

To start, capture the path where your file is stored.

For demonstration purposes, let’s suppose that a file called “cars” is stored under the following path:

C:\Users\Ron\Desktop\Test\cars.txt

Note that you’ll need to modify the file path to reflect the location where the file is stored on your computer.

To rename the file using Python, you’ll need to use os module as follows:

import os

os.rename(r"Directory path\OLD_file_name.file_type", 
          r"Directory path\NEW_file_name.file_type")

In the context of our example:

Don’t forget to place “r” before the file path to avoid the following error in Python:

(unicode error) ‘unicodeescape’ codec can’t decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape

The complete Python script to rename the text file from “cars” to “trucks” is:

import os

os.rename(r"C:\Users\Ron\Desktop\Test\cars.txt", 
          r"C:\Users\Ron\Desktop\Test\trucks.txt")

Run the code (adjusted to your file path) and you’ll get the new file name:

trucks