How to find the current directory and file's parent directory in Python?

Better Stack Team
Updated on January 26, 2023

You can use the os module in Python to find the current directory and the parent directory of a file.

To get the current directory, you can use os.getcwd().

To get the parent directory of a file, you can use os.path.dirname(file_path).

For example:

 
import os

# Get current directory
current_dir = os.getcwd()
print(current_dir)

# Get parent directory of a file
file_path = '/path/to/file.txt'
parent_dir = os.path.dirname(file_path)
print(parent_dir)

Note that the os.path.dirname() function takes a file path as an argument and returns the parent directory of that file.

Got an article suggestion? Let us know
Explore more
Licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

We are hiring.

Software is our way of making the world a tiny bit better. We build tools for the makers of tomorrow.

Explore all positions →