Monitor a folder for new files and trigger actions based on file type: November 16, 2024

<pre><code>Monitor a Folder for New Files and Trigger Actions based on File Type Using Python

**Overview**

Monitoring a folder for new files and triggering actions based on file type is a common task in automation and data processing. In this blog post, we will explore how to achieve this using Python. We will use the `watchdog` library to monitor the folder for new files and the `mimetypes` library to determine the file type.

**Installing the Required Libraries**

To get started, you will need to install the `watchdog` and `mimetypes` libraries. You can install them using pip:
```
pip install watchdog mimetypes
```
**Monitoring the Folder for New Files**

To monitor the folder for new files, we will use the `watchdog` library. We will create a watcher object and specify the folder to watch. We will also define a function to be called whenever a new file is detected:
```python
import os
import time
from watchdog.observers import Observer
from watchdog.events import FileSystemEventHandler

class MyHandler(FileSystemEventHandler):
    def on_created(self, event):
        # Get the path of the new file
        new_file_path = event.src_path
        
        # Get the file type
        file_type = self.get_file_type(new_file_path)
        
        # Trigger an action based on the file type
        if file_type == 'text/plain':
            print(f"New text file detected: {new_file_path}")
        elif file_type == 'image/jpeg':
            print(f"New image file detected: {new_file_path}")
        else:
            print(f"New file detected: {new_file_path} (unknown type)")
    
    def get_file_type(self, file_path):
        MIME_TYPES = mimetypes.mime_types
        name, encoding = os.path.splitext(file_path)
        if encoding not in MIME_TYPES:
            return 'unknown'
        return MIME_TYPES[encoding][0]

# Create a watcher object and specify the folder to watch
observer = Observer()
observer.schedule(MyHandler('/path/to/watch/folder'))
observer.start()

# Run indefinitely
while True:
    time.sleep(1)
```
**Conclusion**

In this blog post, we have demonstrated how to monitor a folder for new files and trigger actions based on file type using Python. We used the `watchdog` library to monitor the folder for new files and the `mimetypes` library to determine the file type. We also defined a custom handler class to detect new files and trigger actions based on their type. With this code, you can monitor a folder for new files and take action based on their type.

**Questions**

* How would you modify the code to monitor multiple folders?
* What other actions could you trigger based on file type?
* How would you integrate this code with other automation tools or scripts?

**Tags:** Python, Automation, File Monitoring, Watchdog, Mimetypes