Getting WinError 5 Access is Denied

Question

import os
import time

filePath = 'C:\\Users\\Ben\\Downloads'

dir =os.getcwd()

currTime = time.time()
day = (30 * 86400)

executionDate = currTime - day


if(currTime > executionDate):
    os.remove(filePath)
else:
    print("Nothing older than 30 days in download file.")

I am running this script to delete any file in my download folder which is older then 30 days.

I get WindowsError: [Error 5] telling me that access is denied.

I have tried running pyCharm as admin, running from command line as user and administrator. I have administrative rights but I cannot seem to get past this issue.

Answer 1

You have a few errors. I'll start at the top and work my way down.

dir = os.getcwd()

This is dead code, since you never reference dir . Any linter should warn you about this. Delete it.

currTime = time.time()  # nit: camelCase is not idiomatic in Python, use curr_time or currtime
day = (30 * 86400)  # nit: this should be named thirty_days, not day. Also 86400 seems like a magic number
                    # maybe day = 60 * 60 * 24; thirty_days = 30 * day

executionDate = currTime - day  # nit: camelCase again...

Note that executionDate is now always 30 days before the time right now.

if currTime > executionDate:

What? Why are we testing this? We already know executionDate is 30 days before right now!

    os.remove(filePath)

You're trying to remove the directory? Huh?

---

What you're trying to do, I think, is to check each file in the directory, compare its creation timestamp (or last modified timestamp? I'm not sure) to the thirty-days-ago value, and delete that file if possible. You want os.stat and os.listdir

for fname in os.listdir(filePath):
    ctime = os.stat(os.path.join(filePath, fname)).st_ctime
    if ctime < cutoff:  # I've renamed executionDate here because it's a silly name
        try:
            os.remove(os.path.join(filePath, fname))
        except Exception as e:
            # something went wrong, let's print what it was
            print("!! Error: " + str(e))
        else:
            # nothing went wrong
            print("Deleted " + os.path.join(filePath, fname))