mimetypes — Map filenames to MIME types¶
The mimetypes module converts between a filename or URL and the MIME type associated with the filename extension. Conversions are provided from filename to MIME type and from MIME type to filename extension; encodings are not supported for the latter conversion.
The module provides one class and a number of convenience functions. The functions are the normal interface to this module, but some applications may be interested in the class as well.
The functions described below provide the primary interface for this module. If the module has not been initialized, they will call init() if they rely on the information init() sets up.
mimetypes. guess_type ( url , strict = True ) ¶
Guess the type of a file based on its filename, path or URL, given by url. URL can be a string or a path-like object .
The return value is a tuple (type, encoding) where type is None if the type can’t be guessed (missing or unknown suffix) or a string of the form ‘type/subtype’ , usable for a MIME content-type header.
encoding is None for no encoding or the name of the program used to encode (e.g. compress or gzip). The encoding is suitable for use as a Content-Encoding header, not as a Content-Transfer-Encoding header. The mappings are table driven. Encoding suffixes are case sensitive; type suffixes are first tried case sensitively, then case insensitively.
The optional strict argument is a flag specifying whether the list of known MIME types is limited to only the official types registered with IANA. When strict is True (the default), only the IANA types are supported; when strict is False , some additional non-standard but commonly used MIME types are also recognized.
Changed in version 3.8: Added support for url being a path-like object .
Guess the extensions for a file based on its MIME type, given by type. The return value is a list of strings giving all possible filename extensions, including the leading dot ( ‘.’ ). The extensions are not guaranteed to have been associated with any particular data stream, but would be mapped to the MIME type type by guess_type() .
The optional strict argument has the same meaning as with the guess_type() function.
mimetypes. guess_extension ( type , strict = True ) ¶
Guess the extension for a file based on its MIME type, given by type. The return value is a string giving a filename extension, including the leading dot ( ‘.’ ). The extension is not guaranteed to have been associated with any particular data stream, but would be mapped to the MIME type type by guess_type() . If no extension can be guessed for type, None is returned.
The optional strict argument has the same meaning as with the guess_type() function.
Some additional functions and data items are available for controlling the behavior of the module.
mimetypes. init ( files = None ) ¶
Initialize the internal data structures. If given, files must be a sequence of file names which should be used to augment the default type map. If omitted, the file names to use are taken from knownfiles ; on Windows, the current registry settings are loaded. Each file named in files or knownfiles takes precedence over those named before it. Calling init() repeatedly is allowed.
Specifying an empty list for files will prevent the system defaults from being applied: only the well-known values will be present from a built-in list.
If files is None the internal data structure is completely rebuilt to its initial default value. This is a stable operation and will produce the same results when called multiple times.
Changed in version 3.2: Previously, Windows registry settings were ignored.
Load the type map given in the file filename, if it exists. The type map is returned as a dictionary mapping filename extensions, including the leading dot ( ‘.’ ), to strings of the form ‘type/subtype’ . If the file filename does not exist or cannot be read, None is returned.
mimetypes. add_type ( type , ext , strict = True ) ¶
Add a mapping from the MIME type type to the extension ext. When the extension is already known, the new type will replace the old one. When the type is already known the extension will be added to the list of known extensions.
When strict is True (the default), the mapping will be added to the official MIME types, otherwise to the non-standard ones.
Flag indicating whether or not the global data structures have been initialized. This is set to True by init() .
List of type map file names commonly installed. These files are typically named mime.types and are installed in different locations by different packages.
Dictionary mapping suffixes to suffixes. This is used to allow recognition of encoded files for which the encoding and the type are indicated by the same extension. For example, the .tgz extension is mapped to .tar.gz to allow the encoding and type to be recognized separately.
Dictionary mapping filename extensions to encoding types.
Dictionary mapping filename extensions to MIME types.
Dictionary mapping filename extensions to non-standard, but commonly found MIME types.
An example usage of the module:
>>> import mimetypes >>> mimetypes.init() >>> mimetypes.knownfiles ['/etc/mime.types', '/etc/httpd/mime.types', . ] >>> mimetypes.suffix_map['.tgz'] '.tar.gz' >>> mimetypes.encodings_map['.gz'] 'gzip' >>> mimetypes.types_map['.tgz'] 'application/x-tar-gz'
MimeTypes Objects¶
The MimeTypes class may be useful for applications which may want more than one MIME-type database; it provides an interface similar to the one of the mimetypes module.
class mimetypes. MimeTypes ( filenames = () , strict = True ) ¶
This class represents a MIME-types database. By default, it provides access to the same database as the rest of this module. The initial database is a copy of that provided by the module, and may be extended by loading additional mime.types -style files into the database using the read() or readfp() methods. The mapping dictionaries may also be cleared before loading additional data if the default data is not desired.
The optional filenames parameter can be used to cause additional files to be loaded “on top” of the default database.
Dictionary mapping suffixes to suffixes. This is used to allow recognition of encoded files for which the encoding and the type are indicated by the same extension. For example, the .tgz extension is mapped to .tar.gz to allow the encoding and type to be recognized separately. This is initially a copy of the global suffix_map defined in the module.
Dictionary mapping filename extensions to encoding types. This is initially a copy of the global encodings_map defined in the module.
Tuple containing two dictionaries, mapping filename extensions to MIME types: the first dictionary is for the non-standards types and the second one is for the standard types. They are initialized by common_types and types_map .
Tuple containing two dictionaries, mapping MIME types to a list of filename extensions: the first dictionary is for the non-standards types and the second one is for the standard types. They are initialized by common_types and types_map .
guess_extension ( type , strict = True ) ¶
Similar to the guess_extension() function, using the tables stored as part of the object.
guess_type ( url , strict = True ) ¶
Similar to the guess_type() function, using the tables stored as part of the object.
guess_all_extensions ( type , strict = True ) ¶
Similar to the guess_all_extensions() function, using the tables stored as part of the object.
read ( filename , strict = True ) ¶
Load MIME information from a file named filename. This uses readfp() to parse the file.
If strict is True , information will be added to list of standard types, else to the list of non-standard types.
Load MIME type information from an open file fp. The file must have the format of the standard mime.types files.
If strict is True , information will be added to the list of standard types, else to the list of non-standard types.
read_windows_registry ( strict = True ) ¶
Load MIME type information from the Windows registry.
If strict is True , information will be added to the list of standard types, else to the list of non-standard types.
How to Get File Extension in Python
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We can use Python os module splitext() function to get the file extension. This function splits the file path into a tuple having two values — root and extension.
Getting File Extension in Python
import os # unpacking the tuple file_name, file_extension = os.path.splitext("/Users/pankaj/abc.txt") print(file_name) print(file_extension) print(os.path.splitext("/Users/pankaj/.bashrc")) print(os.path.splitext("/Users/pankaj/a.b/image.png")) 
Output:
- In the first example, we are directly unpacking the tuple values to the two variables.
- Note that the .bashrc file has no extension. The dot is added to the file name to make it a hidden file.
- In the third example, there is a dot in the directory name.
Get File Extension using Pathlib Module
We can also use pathlib module to get the file extension. This module was introduced in Python 3.4 release.
>>> import pathlib >>> pathlib.Path("/Users/pankaj/abc.txt").suffix '.txt' >>> pathlib.Path("/Users/pankaj/.bashrc").suffix '' >>> pathlib.Path("/Users/pankaj/.bashrc") PosixPath('/Users/pankaj/.bashrc') >>> pathlib.Path("/Users/pankaj/a.b/abc.jpg").suffix '.jpg' >>> Conclusion
It’s always better to use the standard methods to get the file extension. If you are already using the os module, then use the splitext() method. For the object-oriented approach, use the pathlib module.
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Python: Get a File’s Extension (Windows, Mac, and Linux)
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use Python to get a file extension. You’ll accomplish this using both the pathlib library and the os.path module.
Being able to work with files in Python in an easy manner is one of the languages greatest strength. You could, for example use the glob library to iterate over files in a folder. When you do this, knowing what the file extension of each file may drive further decisions. Because of this, knowing how to get a file’s extension is an import skill! Let’s get started learning how to use Python to get a file’s extension, in Windows, Mac, and Linux!
The Quick Answer: Use Pathlib
Using Python Pathlib to Get a File’s Extension
The Python pathlib library makes it incredibly easy to work with and manipulate paths. Because of this, it makes perfect sense that the library would have the way of accessing a file’s extension.
The pathlib library comes with a class named Path , which we use to create path-based objects. When we load our file’s path into a Path object, we can access specific attributes about the object by using its built-in properties.
Let’s see how we can use the pathlib library in Python to get a file’s extension:
# Get a file's extension using pathlib import pathlib file_path = "/Users/datagy/Desktop/Important Spreadsheet.xlsx" extension = pathlib.Path(file_path).suffix print(extension) # Returns: .xlsxWe can see here that we passed a file’s path into the Path class, creating a Path object. After we did this, we can access different attributes, including the .suffix attribute. When we assigned this to a variable named extension , we printed it, getting .xlsx back.
This method works well for both Mac and Linux computers. When you’re working with Windows, however, the file paths operate a little differently.
Because of this, when using Windows, create your file path as a “raw” string. But how do you do this? Simply prefix your string with a r , like this r’some string’ . This will let Python know to not use the backslashes as escape characters.
Now that we’ve taken a look at how to use pathlib in Python to get a file extension, let’s explore how we can do the same using the os.path module.
Want to learn more? Want to learn how to use the pathlib library to automatically rename files in Python? Check out my in-depth tutorial and video on Towards Data Science!