If it doesn’t matter it is a file or directory you can use os.path.exists():

import os

file = "/home/user/tmp/file"
dir = "/home/user/tmp/dir"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print("File exists: ", os.path.exists(file))
    print("Dir exists: ", os.path.exists(dir))

Info

I’m using if __name__ == “__main__” notation. If you want to see more information about this look this article: What does if name __name__ == “__main__” do in Python

When you run the file you will see similiar output like below:

$ python check_exists.py

File exists: True
Dir exists: True

You may be a little bit confused, since In Unix-like systems — MacOs and Linux, script files don’t have to need file extensions like file.sh or file.py. All you need is a shebang — #!. For instance this is the content of /home/user/tmp/file:

# /home/user/tmp/file
#!/bin/bash

# make a tmp/ dir at $HOME if not exists with verbose input
mkdir -pv ~/tmp

Note

Using ~/ alias like ~/tmp/dir doesn’t work. You need to give absolute path or expand the alias: os.path.expanduser(’~/tmp/file’)

File

If you want to check a file exists and got file type:

import os

file = "/home/user/tmp/file"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print("File exists AND a file: ", os.path.isfile(file))

Directory

You can check directory with os.path.isdir function:

import os

dir = "/home/user/tmp/dir"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print("Dir exists AND a directory: ", os.path.isdir(dir))

Bonus:Create If Not Exists

Also if you want to create one if this doesn’t exist:

import os

file = "/home/user/tmp/file"
dir = "/home/user/tmp/dir"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # create dir if not exists
    if not os.path.isdir(dir):
        os.mkdir(dir)

    # create file if not exists
    if not os.path.isfile(file):
        open(file, 'w').close()

    # alternative to create file if not exists
    from pathlib import Path
    Path(file).touch()

All done!