How to create a zip archive of a directory?

The easiest way is to use shutil.make_archive. It supports both zip and tar formats.

import shutil
shutil.make_archive(output_filename, 'zip', dir_name)

If you need to do something more complicated than zipping the whole directory (such as skipping certain files), then you'll need to dig into the zipfile module as others have suggested.

---

As others have pointed out, you should use zipfile. The documentation tells you what functions are available, but doesn't really explain how you can use them to zip an entire directory. I think it's easiest to explain with some example code:

import os
import zipfile
    
def zipdir(path, ziph):
    # ziph is zipfile handle
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path):
        for file in files:
            ziph.write(os.path.join(root, file), 
                       os.path.relpath(os.path.join(root, file), 
                                       os.path.join(path, '..')))

with zipfile.ZipFile('Python.zip', 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED) as zipf:
    zipdir('tmp/', zipf)

---

To add the contents of mydirectory to a new zip file, including all files and subdirectories:

import os
import zipfile

zf = zipfile.ZipFile("myzipfile.zip", "w")
for dirname, subdirs, files in os.walk("mydirectory"):
    zf.write(dirname)
    for filename in files:
        zf.write(os.path.join(dirname, filename))
zf.close()

---

How can I create a zip archive of a directory structure in Python?

In a Python script

In Python 2.7+, shutil has a make_archive function.

from shutil import make_archive
make_archive(
  'zipfile_name', 
  'zip',           # the archive format - or tar, bztar, gztar 
  root_dir=None,   # root for archive - current working dir if None
  base_dir=None)   # start archiving from here - cwd if None too

Here the zipped archive will be named zipfile_name.zip. If base_dir is farther down from root_dir it will exclude files not in the base_dir, but still archive the files in the parent dirs up to the root_dir.

I did have an issue testing this on Cygwin with 2.7 - it wants a root_dir argument, for cwd:

make_archive('zipfile_name', 'zip', root_dir='.')

Using Python from the shell

You can do this with Python from the shell also using the zipfile module:

$ python -m zipfile -c zipname sourcedir

Where zipname is the name of the destination file you want (add .zip if you want it, it won't do it automatically) and sourcedir is the path to the directory.

Zipping up Python (or just don't want parent dir):

If you're trying to zip up a python package with a __init__.py and __main__.py, and you don't want the parent dir, it's

$ python -m zipfile -c zipname sourcedir/*

And

$ python zipname

would run the package. (Note that you can't run subpackages as the entry point from a zipped archive.)

Zipping a Python app:

If you have python3.5+, and specifically want to zip up a Python package, use zipapp:

$ python -m zipapp myapp
$ python myapp.pyz

---

This function will recursively zip up a directory tree, compressing the files, and recording the correct relative filenames in the archive. The archive entries are the same as those generated by zip -r output.zip source_dir.

import os
import zipfile
def make_zipfile(output_filename, source_dir):
    relroot = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(source_dir, os.pardir))
    with zipfile.ZipFile(output_filename, "w", zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED) as zip:
        for root, dirs, files in os.walk(source_dir):
            # add directory (needed for empty dirs)
            zip.write(root, os.path.relpath(root, relroot))
            for file in files:
                filename = os.path.join(root, file)
                if os.path.isfile(filename): # regular files only
                    arcname = os.path.join(os.path.relpath(root, relroot), file)
                    zip.write(filename, arcname)

---

Use shutil, which is part of python standard library set. Using shutil is so simple(see code below):

1st arg: Filename of resultant zip/tar file,

2nd arg: zip/tar,

3rd arg: dir_name

Code:

import shutil
shutil.make_archive('/home/user/Desktop/Filename','zip','/home/username/Desktop/Directory')

---

Modern Python (3.6+) using the pathlib module for concise OOP-like handling of paths, and pathlib.Path.rglob() for recursive globbing. As far as I can tell, this is equivalent to George V. Reilly's answer: zips with compression, the topmost element is a directory, keeps empty dirs, uses relative paths.

from pathlib import Path
from zipfile import ZIP_DEFLATED, ZipFile

from os import PathLike
from typing import Union


def zip_dir(zip_name: str, source_dir: Union[str, PathLike]):
    src_path = Path(source_dir).expanduser().resolve(strict=True)
    with ZipFile(zip_name, 'w', ZIP_DEFLATED) as zf:
        for file in src_path.rglob('*'):
            zf.write(file, file.relative_to(src_path.parent))

Note: as optional type hints indicate, zip_name can't be a Path object (would be fixed in 3.6.2+).

---

With python 3.9, pathlib & zipfile module you can create a zip files from anywhere in the system.

def zip_dir(dir: Union[Path, str], filename: Union[Path, str]):
    """Zip the provided directory without navigating to that directory using `pathlib` module"""

    # Convert to Path object
    dir = Path(dir)

    with zipfile.ZipFile(filename, "w", zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED) as zip_file:
        for entry in dir.rglob("*"):
            zip_file.write(entry, entry.relative_to(dir))

It is neat, typed, and has less code.

---

For adding compression to the resulting zip file, check out this link.

You need to change:

zip = zipfile.ZipFile('Python.zip', 'w')

to

zip = zipfile.ZipFile('Python.zip', 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)

---

I've made some changes to code given by Mark Byers. Below function will also adds empty directories if you have them. Examples should make it more clear what is the path added to the zip.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import zipfile

def addDirToZip(zipHandle, path, basePath=""):
    """
    Adding directory given by \a path to opened zip file \a zipHandle

    @param basePath path that will be removed from \a path when adding to archive

    Examples:
        # add whole "dir" to "test.zip" (when you open "test.zip" you will see only "dir")
        zipHandle = zipfile.ZipFile('test.zip', 'w')
        addDirToZip(zipHandle, 'dir')
        zipHandle.close()

        # add contents of "dir" to "test.zip" (when you open "test.zip" you will see only it's contents)
        zipHandle = zipfile.ZipFile('test.zip', 'w')
        addDirToZip(zipHandle, 'dir', 'dir')
        zipHandle.close()

        # add contents of "dir/subdir" to "test.zip" (when you open "test.zip" you will see only contents of "subdir")
        zipHandle = zipfile.ZipFile('test.zip', 'w')
        addDirToZip(zipHandle, 'dir/subdir', 'dir/subdir')
        zipHandle.close()

        # add whole "dir/subdir" to "test.zip" (when you open "test.zip" you will see only "subdir")
        zipHandle = zipfile.ZipFile('test.zip', 'w')
        addDirToZip(zipHandle, 'dir/subdir', 'dir')
        zipHandle.close()

        # add whole "dir/subdir" with full path to "test.zip" (when you open "test.zip" you will see only "dir" and inside it only "subdir")
        zipHandle = zipfile.ZipFile('test.zip', 'w')
        addDirToZip(zipHandle, 'dir/subdir')
        zipHandle.close()

        # add whole "dir" and "otherDir" (with full path) to "test.zip" (when you open "test.zip" you will see only "dir" and "otherDir")
        zipHandle = zipfile.ZipFile('test.zip', 'w')
        addDirToZip(zipHandle, 'dir')
        addDirToZip(zipHandle, 'otherDir')
        zipHandle.close()
    """
    basePath = basePath.rstrip("\\/") + ""
    basePath = basePath.rstrip("\\/")
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path):
        # add dir itself (needed for empty dirs
        zipHandle.write(os.path.join(root, "."))
        # add files
        for file in files:
            filePath = os.path.join(root, file)
            inZipPath = filePath.replace(basePath, "", 1).lstrip("\\/")
            #print filePath + " , " + inZipPath
            zipHandle.write(filePath, inZipPath)

Above is a simple function that should work for simple cases. You can find more elegant class in my Gist: https://gist.github.com/Eccenux/17526123107ca0ac28e6

---

I have another code example that may help, using python3, pathlib and zipfile. It should work in any OS.

from pathlib import Path
import zipfile
from datetime import datetime

DATE_FORMAT = '%y%m%d'


def date_str():
    """returns the today string year, month, day"""
    return '{}'.format(datetime.now().strftime(DATE_FORMAT))


def zip_name(path):
    """returns the zip filename as string"""
    cur_dir = Path(path).resolve()
    parent_dir = cur_dir.parents[0]
    zip_filename = '{}/{}_{}.zip'.format(parent_dir, cur_dir.name, date_str())
    p_zip = Path(zip_filename)
    n = 1
    while p_zip.exists():
        zip_filename = ('{}/{}_{}_{}.zip'.format(parent_dir, cur_dir.name,
                                             date_str(), n))
        p_zip = Path(zip_filename)
        n += 1
    return zip_filename


def all_files(path):
    """iterator returns all files and folders from path as absolute path string
    """
    for child in Path(path).iterdir():
        yield str(child)
        if child.is_dir():
            for grand_child in all_files(str(child)):
                yield str(Path(grand_child))


def zip_dir(path):
    """generate a zip"""
    zip_filename = zip_name(path)
    zip_file = zipfile.ZipFile(zip_filename, 'w')
    print('create:', zip_filename)
    for file in all_files(path):
        print('adding... ', file)
        zip_file.write(file)
    zip_file.close()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    zip_dir('.')
    print('end!')

---

To retain the folder hierarchy under the parent directory to be archived:

import glob
import os
import zipfile

with zipfile.ZipFile(fp_zip, "w", zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED) as zipf:
    for fp in glob(os.path.join(parent, "**/*")):
        base = os.path.commonpath([parent, fp])
        zipf.write(fp, arcname=fp.replace(base, ""))

If you want, you could change this to use pathlib for file globbing.

---

You probably want to look at the zipfile module; there's documentation at http://docs.python.org/library/zipfile.html.

You may also want os.walk() to index the directory structure.

---

If you want a functionality like the compress folder of any common graphical file manager you can use the following code, it uses the zipfile module. Using this code you will have the zip file with the path as its root folder.

import os
import zipfile

def zipdir(path, ziph):
    # Iterate all the directories and files
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path):
        # Create a prefix variable with the folder structure inside the path folder. 
        # So if a file is at the path directory will be at the root directory of the zip file
        # so the prefix will be empty. If the file belongs to a containing folder of path folder 
        # then the prefix will be that folder.
        if root.replace(path,'') == '':
                prefix = ''
        else:
                # Keep the folder structure after the path folder, append a '/' at the end 
                # and remome the first character, if it is a '/' in order to have a path like 
                # folder1/folder2/file.txt
                prefix = root.replace(path, '') + '/'
                if (prefix[0] == '/'):
                        prefix = prefix[1:]
        for filename in files:
                actual_file_path = root + '/' + filename
                zipped_file_path = prefix + filename
                zipf.write( actual_file_path, zipped_file_path)


zipf = zipfile.ZipFile('Python.zip', 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
zipdir('/tmp/justtest/', zipf)
zipf.close()

---

So many answers here, and I hope I might contribute with my own version, which is based on the original answer (by the way), but with a more graphical perspective, also using context for each zipfile setup and sorting os.walk(), in order to have a ordered output.

Having these folders and them files (among other folders), I wanted to create a .zip for each cap_ folder:

$ tree -d
.
├── cap_01
|    ├── 0101000001.json
|    ├── 0101000002.json
|    ├── 0101000003.json
|
├── cap_02
|    ├── 0201000001.json
|    ├── 0201000002.json
|    ├── 0201001003.json
|
├── cap_03
|    ├── 0301000001.json
|    ├── 0301000002.json
|    ├── 0301000003.json
| 
├── docs
|    ├── map.txt
|    ├── main_data.xml
|
├── core_files
     ├── core_master
     ├── core_slave

Here's what I applied, with comments for better understanding of the process.

$ cat zip_cap_dirs.py 
""" Zip 'cap_*' directories. """           
import os                                                                       
import zipfile as zf                                                            


for root, dirs, files in sorted(os.walk('.')):                                                                                               
    if 'cap_' in root:                                                          
        print(f"Compressing: {root}")                                           
        # Defining .zip name, according to Capítulo.                            
        cap_dir_zip = '{}.zip'.format(root)                                     
        # Opening zipfile context for current root dir.                         
        with zf.ZipFile(cap_dir_zip, 'w', zf.ZIP_DEFLATED) as new_zip:          
            # Iterating over os.walk list of files for the current root dir.    
            for f in files:                                                     
                # Defining relative path to files from current root dir.        
                f_path = os.path.join(root, f)                                  
                # Writing the file on the .zip file of the context              
                new_zip.write(f_path) 

Basically, for each iteration over os.walk(path), I'm opening a context for zipfile setup and afterwards, iterating iterating over files, which is a list of files from root directory, forming the relative path for each file based on the current root directory, appending to the zipfile context which is running.

And the output is presented like this:

$ python3 zip_cap_dirs.py
Compressing: ./cap_01
Compressing: ./cap_02
Compressing: ./cap_03

To see the contents of each .zip directory, you can use less command:

$ less cap_01.zip

Archive:  cap_01.zip
 Length   Method    Size  Cmpr    Date    Time   CRC-32   Name
--------  ------  ------- ---- ---------- ----- --------  ----
  22017  Defl:N     2471  89% 2019-09-05 08:05 7a3b5ec6  cap_01/0101000001.json
  21998  Defl:N     2471  89% 2019-09-05 08:05 155bece7  cap_01/0101000002.json
  23236  Defl:N     2573  89% 2019-09-05 08:05 55fced20  cap_01/0101000003.json
--------          ------- ---                           -------
  67251             7515  89%                            3 files

---

Here is a variation on the answer given by Nux that works for me:

def WriteDirectoryToZipFile( zipHandle, srcPath, zipLocalPath = "", zipOperation = zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED ):
    basePath = os.path.split( srcPath )[ 0 ]
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk( srcPath ):
        p = os.path.join( zipLocalPath, root [ ( len( basePath ) + 1 ) : ] )
        # add dir
        zipHandle.write( root, p, zipOperation )
        # add files
        for f in files:
            filePath = os.path.join( root, f )
            fileInZipPath = os.path.join( p, f )
            zipHandle.write( filePath, fileInZipPath, zipOperation )

---

Try the below one .it worked for me.

import zipfile, os
zipf = "compress.zip"  
def main():
    directory = r"Filepath"
    toZip(directory)
def toZip(directory):
    zippedHelp = zipfile.ZipFile(zipf, "w", compression=zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED )

    list = os.listdir(directory)
    for file_list in list:
        file_name = os.path.join(directory,file_list)

        if os.path.isfile(file_name):
            print file_name
            zippedHelp.write(file_name)
        else:
            addFolderToZip(zippedHelp,file_list,directory)
            print "---------------Directory Found-----------------------"
    zippedHelp.close()

def addFolderToZip(zippedHelp,folder,directory):
    path=os.path.join(directory,folder)
    print path
    file_list=os.listdir(path)
    for file_name in file_list:
        file_path=os.path.join(path,file_name)
        if os.path.isfile(file_path):
            zippedHelp.write(file_path)
        elif os.path.isdir(file_name):
            print "------------------sub directory found--------------------"
            addFolderToZip(zippedHelp,file_name,path)


if __name__=="__main__":
    main()

---

To give more flexibility, e.g. select directory/file by name use:

import os
import zipfile

def zipall(ob, path, rel=""):
    basename = os.path.basename(path)
    if os.path.isdir(path):
        if rel == "":
            rel = basename
        ob.write(path, os.path.join(rel))
        for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path):
            for d in dirs:
                zipall(ob, os.path.join(root, d), os.path.join(rel, d))
            for f in files:
                ob.write(os.path.join(root, f), os.path.join(rel, f))
            break
    elif os.path.isfile(path):
        ob.write(path, os.path.join(rel, basename))
    else:
        pass

For a file tree:

.
├── dir
│   ├── dir2
│   │   └── file2.txt
│   ├── dir3
│   │   └── file3.txt
│   └── file.txt
├── dir4
│   ├── dir5
│   └── file4.txt
├── listdir.zip
├── main.py
├── root.txt
└── selective.zip

You can e.g. select only dir4 and root.txt:

cwd = os.getcwd()
files = [os.path.join(cwd, f) for f in ['dir4', 'root.txt']]

with zipfile.ZipFile("selective.zip", "w" ) as myzip:
    for f in files:
        zipall(myzip, f)

Or just listdir in script invocation directory and add everything from there:

with zipfile.ZipFile("listdir.zip", "w" ) as myzip:
    for f in os.listdir():
        if f == "listdir.zip":
            # Creating a listdir.zip in the same directory
            # will include listdir.zip inside itself, beware of this
            continue
        zipall(myzip, f)

---

Say you want to Zip all the folders(sub directories) in the current directory.

for root, dirs, files in os.walk("."):
    for sub_dir in dirs:
        zip_you_want = sub_dir+".zip"
        zip_process = zipfile.ZipFile(zip_you_want, "w", zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
        zip_process.write(file_you_want_to_include)
        zip_process.close()

        print("Successfully zipped directory: {sub_dir}".format(sub_dir=sub_dir))

---

Zip a file or a tree (a directory and its sub-directories).

from pathlib import Path
from zipfile import ZipFile, ZIP_DEFLATED

def make_zip(tree_path, zip_path, mode='w', skip_empty_dir=False):
    with ZipFile(zip_path, mode=mode, compression=ZIP_DEFLATED) as zf:
        paths = [Path(tree_path)]
        while paths:
            p = paths.pop()
            if p.is_dir():
                paths.extend(p.iterdir())
                if skip_empty_dir:
                    continue
            zf.write(p)

To append to an existing archive, pass mode='a', to create a fresh archive mode='w' (the default in the above). So let's say you want to bundle 3 different directory trees under the same archive.

make_zip(path_to_tree1, path_to_arch, mode='w')
make_zip(path_to_tree2, path_to_arch, mode='a')
make_zip(path_to_file3, path_to_arch, mode='a')

---

A solution using pathlib.Path, which is independent of the OS used:

import zipfile
from pathlib import Path

def zip_dir(path: Path, zip_file_path: Path):
    """Zip all contents of path to zip_file"""
    files_to_zip = [
        file for file in path.glob('*') if file.is_file()]
    with zipfile.ZipFile(
        zip_file_path, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED) as zip_f:
        for file in files_to_zip:
            print(file.name)
            zip_f.write(file, file.name)

current_dir = Path.cwd()  
zip_dir = current_dir / "test"
tools.zip_dir(
    zip_dir, current_dir / 'Zipped_dir.zip')

---

The obvious way to go would be to go with shutil, Like the second top answer says so, But if you still wish to go with ZipFile for some reason, And if you are getting some trouble doing that (Like ERR 13 in Windows etc), You can use this fix:

import os
import zipfile

def retrieve_file_paths(dirName):
  filePaths = []
  for root, directories, files in os.walk(dirName):
    for filename in files:
        filePath = os.path.join(root, filename)
        filePaths.append(filePath)
  return filePaths
 
def main(dir_name, output_filename):
  filePaths = retrieve_file_paths(dir_name)
   
  zip_file = zipfile.ZipFile(output_filename+'.zip', 'w')
  with zip_file:
    for file in filePaths:
      zip_file.write(file)

main("my_dir", "my_dir_archived")

This one recursively iterates through every sub-folder/file in your given folder, And writes them to a zip file instead of attempting to directly zip a folder.

---

Here's a modern approach, using pathlib, and a context manager. Puts the files directly in the zip, rather than in a subfolder.

def zip_dir(filename: str, dir_to_zip: pathlib.Path):
    with zipfile.ZipFile(filename, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED) as zipf:
        # Use glob instead of iterdir(), to cover all subdirectories.
        for directory in dir_to_zip.glob('**'):
            for file in directory.iterdir():
                if not file.is_file():
                    continue
                # Strip the first component, so we don't create an uneeded subdirectory
                # containing everything.
                zip_path = pathlib.Path(*file.parts[1:])
                # Use a string, since zipfile doesn't support pathlib  directly.
                zipf.write(str(file), str(zip_path))

---

I prepared a function by consolidating Mark Byers' solution with Reimund and Morten Zilmer's comments (relative path and including empty directories). As a best practice, with is used in ZipFile's file construction.

The function also prepares a default zip file name with the zipped directory name and '.zip' extension. Therefore, it works with only one argument: the source directory to be zipped.

import os
import zipfile

def zip_dir(path_dir, path_file_zip=''):
if not path_file_zip:
    path_file_zip = os.path.join(
        os.path.dirname(path_dir), os.path.basename(path_dir)+'.zip')
with zipfile.ZipFile(path_file_zip, 'wb', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED) as zip_file:
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path_dir):
        for file_or_dir in files + dirs:
            zip_file.write(
                os.path.join(root, file_or_dir),
                os.path.relpath(os.path.join(root, file_or_dir),
                                os.path.join(path_dir, os.path.pardir)))

---

# import required python modules
# You have to install zipfile package using pip install

import os,zipfile

# Change the directory where you want your new zip file to be

os.chdir('Type your destination')

# Create a new zipfile ( I called it myfile )

zf = zipfile.ZipFile('myfile.zip','w')

# os.walk gives a directory tree. Access the files using a for loop

for dirnames,folders,files in os.walk('Type your directory'):
    zf.write('Type your Directory')
    for file in files:
        zf.write(os.path.join('Type your directory',file))

---

Well, after reading the suggestions I came up with a very similar way that works with 2.7.x without creating "funny" directory names (absolute-like names), and will only create the specified folder inside the zip.

Or just in case you needed your zip to contain a folder inside with the contents of the selected directory.

def zipDir( path, ziph ) :
 """
 Inserts directory (path) into zipfile instance (ziph)
 """
 for root, dirs, files in os.walk( path ) :
  for file in files :
   ziph.write( os.path.join( root, file ) , os.path.basename( os.path.normpath( path ) ) + "\\" + file )

def makeZip( pathToFolder ) :
 """
 Creates a zip file with the specified folder
 """
 zipf = zipfile.ZipFile( pathToFolder + 'file.zip', 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED )
 zipDir( pathToFolder, zipf )
 zipf.close()
 print( "Zip file saved to: " + pathToFolder)

makeZip( "c:\\path\\to\\folder\\to\\insert\\into\\zipfile" )

---

Function to create zip file.

def CREATEZIPFILE(zipname, path):
    #function to create a zip file
    #Parameters: zipname - name of the zip file; path - name of folder/file to be put in zip file

    zipf = zipfile.ZipFile(zipname, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
    zipf.setpassword(b"password") #if you want to set password to zipfile

    #checks if the path is file or directory
    if os.path.isdir(path):
        for files in os.listdir(path):
            zipf.write(os.path.join(path, files), files)

    elif os.path.isfile(path):
        zipf.write(os.path.join(path), path)
    zipf.close()

---