How to create a directory using Node.js ?

In this article, we will create a directory using NodeJS.

NodeJS has Filesystem(fs) core module, which enables interacting with the file system, has Node.js fs.mkdir() method or Node.js fs.mkdirSync() method method, to create new directory /parent directory.

Node.js fs.mkdir() method: Let’s create a new directory using fs.mkdir() method. Initially, we have single file index.js, as we can see in the given image.

index.js

Example: Edit the index.js file.

Javascript

const fs = require("fs");

const path = "./new-Directory";

fs.access(path, (error) => {

  // To check if the given directory
  // already exists or not
  if (error) {
    // If current directory does not exist
    // then create it
    fs.mkdir(path, (error) => {
      if (error) {
        console.log(error);
      } else {
        console.log("New Directory created successfully !!");
      }
    });
  } else {
    console.log("Given Directory already exists !!");
  }
});

Output:

• You can check the terminal output.

  

• After executing the above code, node.js will create a new directory if it does not exist. A new Directory named — “new-Directory” is created.

Creating Parent Directories: If we want to create multilevel directory, fs.mkdir() has optional recursive Boolean value we can pass as a parameter. 

Javascript

const fs = require("fs");

// Multilevel directory
const path = "./directory1/directory2/new-directory";

fs.access(path, (error) => {

  // To check if given directory
  // already exists or not
  if (error) {
    // If current directory does not exist then create it
    fs.mkdir(path, { recursive: true }, (error) => {
      if (error) {
        console.log(error);
      } else {
        console.log("New Directory created successfully !!");
      }
    });
  } else {
    console.log("Given Directory already exists !!");
  }
});

Output:

• New Directory created successfully.
  
  

  index.js

• We can see that a multilevel directory “directory1\directory2\new-directory” is created.

  

  index.js

Removing a folder: If we want to delete a given directory, we can use Node.js fs.rmdir() Method or Node.js fs.rmdirSync() Method, it will become complicated if the directory contain some file content.

So we can use a third party package fs-extra provided by npm to delete the given directory. Let’s install the given package using npm.

Run the following command in your command line

npm install fs-extra

Example: Now run the following code to delete the given directory

Javascript

const fs1 = require("fs-extra");

const path = "./directory1";

fs1.remove(path, (error) => {
  if (error) {
    console.log(error);
  } else {
    console.log("Folder Deleted Successfully !!");
  }
});

Output

index.js

Node.js fs.mkdirSync() method: Let’s create a new directory using fs.mkdirSync() method. Initially, we have single file index.js, as we can see in the given image.

Example:

Javascript

const fs1 = require("fs-extra");

// Node.js program to demonstrate the
// fs.mkdirSync() method

const fs = require("fs");

const path = require("path");

// Using fs.exists() method to
// Check that the directory exists or not
console.log("Checking for directory" + path.join(__dirname, "Tisu"));
fs.exists(path.join(__dirname, "Tisu"), (exists) => {
  console.log(exists ? "The directory already exists" : "Not found!");
});

// Using fs.mkdirSync() method
// To create the directory recursively
fs.mkdirSync(path.join(__dirname, "Tisu"), true);

// Using fs.exists() method to
// Check that the directory exists or not
fs.exists(path.join(__dirname, "Tisu"), (exists) => {
  console.log(exists ? "The directory already exists" : "Not found!");
});

Output: