Working with folders in Node.js

The Node.js fs core module provides many handy methods you can use to work with folders.

Check if a folder exists

Use fs.access() (and its promise-based fsPromises.access() counterpart) to check if the folder exists and Node.js can access it with its permissions.

Create a new folder

Use fs.mkdir() or fs.mkdirSync() or fsPromises.mkdir() to create a new folder.

Read the content of a directory

Use fs.readdir() or fs.readdirSync() or fsPromises.readdir() to read the contents of a directory.

This piece of code reads the content of a folder, both files and subfolders, and returns their relative path:

You can get the full path:

fs.readdirSync(folderPath).map(fileName => {
  return path.join(folderPath, fileName);
});

You can also filter the results to only return the files, and exclude the folders:

Rename a folder

Use fs.rename() or fs.renameSync() or fsPromises.rename() to rename folder. The first parameter is the current path, the second the new path:

fs.renameSync() is the synchronous version:

fsPromises.rename() is the promise-based version:

Remove a folder

Use fs.rmdir() or fs.rmdirSync() or fsPromises.rmdir() to remove a folder.

To remove a folder that has contents use fs.rm() with the option { recursive: true } to recursively remove the contents.

{ recursive: true, force: true } makes it so that exceptions will be ignored if the folder does not exist.