# List Files in a Directory Using Python os.walk()

> Use Python os.walk() to list all files in a directory tree, with an optional break statement to limit results to the top-level directory only

**URL:** https://sentry.io/answers/python-list-files-in-directory/

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## The Problem

How can I create a list of the files in a directory using Python?

## The Solution

Python's built-in [`os`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html) module provides a powerful function for file system traversal called [`os.walk()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.walk). This function returns a [generator iterator](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-generator-iterator) that can be used in a for loop to methodically traverse a file system tree, starting at a given path. For each level of the tree, `os.walk()` will return a three-value tuple containing:

* The name of the current directory.
* A list of subdirectory names in the current directory.
* A list of file names in the current directory.

We can use this method to build a list of the file names in a given directory, as in the code below. If we only want the files inside the top directory, we can [`break`](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/simple_stmts.html#break) out of the for loop after the first iteration. Otherwise, we can let it keep going to get a list of all files in all subdirectories.

```python
import os

my_path = "/home/alice/work-files"
file_list = []

for (directory, subdirectories, files) in os.walk(my_path):
    file_list.extend(files)
    break  # remove this line to include files inside subdirectories
```

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*Source: [sentry.io/answers/python-list-files-in-directory/](https://sentry.io/answers/python-list-files-in-directory/)*