topic Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library in Python Questions

Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

MKF62 — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 17:50:12 GMT

Does anybody have a good method of doing this?

I've tried using the zipfile python library but am utterly confused on how to do it for a file geodatabase since it's not exactly a directory/file structure. My folder structure looks like so, I want to zip up the folder/geodatabase outlined in red:

I've tried this (all the indentation is correct in my script, don't know why GeoNet is changing it upon publishing the question):

import zipfile

#Creates the empty zip file and opens it for writing
myzipfile = zipfile.ZipFile("D:\GIS_Testing\HabitatDbase\MyZip.zip", 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
for root, dirs, files in os.walk("D:\GIS_Testing\HabitatDbase"):
 if root == "D:\GIS_Testing\HabitatDbase\HabitatData.gdb":
 for f in files:
 myzipfile.write(os.path.join(root, file))‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

I've also tried using shutil.make_archive and for some reason instead of zipping up my file geodatabase it zips up my python script file which is completely bewildering as I have no idea how it would even get the path to the script file...

I get a TypeError on the last line that says "object of type 'type' has no len()"

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

DarrenWiens2 — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 18:24:58 GMT

Should it be 'f' rather than 'file' in the last line?

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

MKF62 — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 18:30:01 GMT

Hahaha, seriously, of course it's just a typo. Thank you!! I'll leave the thread up because I couldn't find any good examples on how to zip up a file geodatabase in python on GeoNet. Maybe it'll help someone later...

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

DanPatterson_Retired — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 18:40:49 GMT

Michelle Mathias‌ code mangling still today... it is going to get ugly until they fix it

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

JoshuaBixby — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 19:46:01 GMT

Agreed, now that the mangling is affecting discussions in addition to blogs, the impacts will be much more significant.

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

MichelleMathias — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 19:58:47 GMT

I just put some pressure on the vendor to get us a fix soon.

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

AaronKoelker — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 14:44:01 GMT

This is one of the only examples I can find of zipping up a .gdb with python, however when I try to use this method,(accounting for the typo in the last line) my new zip file contains the entire folder structure leading up to the .gdb. Anyone have an idea of how to just zip up the .gdb file?

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

AaronKoelker — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 14:56:32 GMT

As usual, seconds after posting a question -- I get it to work. However I used shutil.make_archive instead of the above ZipFile method.

shutil.make_archive(zipfilename, 'zip', fgdb)‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

zipfilename = filename of your new zip, plus the path ("D:/MyFolder/ExampleFolder/thenameofmynewzip"), leave off the .zip file extension
fgdb = the file geodatabase you want to zip ("D:/MyFolder/ExampleFolder/MyFGDB.gdb")

EDIT: Actually, while the above code technically works, it won't be a good solution if you're trying to zip up the fgdb for uploading to ArcGIS Online. Instead, have fgdb point to the folder that contains the MyFGDB.gdb file, rather than the .gdb file itself. Otherwise you'll get an error when uploading to AGO. You'll also want separate the the new zipfile and the fgdb into their own folders, or add code to grab the fgdb specifically (similar to what the original post is doing). If not, you'll get an empty zip within your zip since it creates the new zip file first before adding in your .gdb, looks like. I'm sure someone else has a more elegant solution to this bit.

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

VinceAngelo — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 18:13:24 GMT

The '.gdb' of a file geodatabase is a directory, not a file. The file geodatabase is the directory and all the files below it (except the lock files -- you can keep those out).

- V

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

tigerwoulds — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 14:57:42 GMT

Old post but figured I'd post my solution incase it helps anyone else. This function will zip the geodatabase and skip any lock files. I was trying to implement the zip in a larger codebase and kept running into locks.

def zipGDB(inputGDB):
    gdbFile = str(inputGDB)
    outFile = gdbFile[0:-4] + '.zip'
    gdbName = os.path.basename(gdbFile)
    with zipfile.ZipFile(outFile, mode='w', compression=zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED, allowZip64=True) as myzip:
        for f in os.listdir(gdbFile):
            if f[-5:] != '.lock':
                myzip.write(os.path.join(gdbFile, f), gdbName + '\\' + os.path.basename(f))
    print('Completed zipping: {}'.format(gdbFile))

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

DAVIDWADSWORTH_LVVWD — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 19:09:19 GMT

Thanks for adding this key distinction. Saved me a lot of time.

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

DAVIDWADSWORTH_LVVWD — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 19:09:34 GMT

Thanks for sharing.

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

danashney — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 20:03:38 GMT

Since this took me much longer to figure out than I care to admit:

The sample provided by TigerWoulds results in a copy of the inputGDB within a zipped folder of the same name. If you want to create a zipped copy without that nesting then remove

gdbName + '\\' +

from the line

myzip.write(os.path.join(gdbFile, f), gdbName + '\\' + os.path.basename(f))

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

patrick_shp — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 17:35:42 GMT

Reviving an older thread, but there aren't too many helpful resources online about this topic...

I had issues utilizing tigerwoulds' script, so I tweaked the function a bit:

zip_geodatabase(input_geodatabase, output_zip)

def zip_geodatabase(input_geodatabase, output_zip):
     # Create a zip file
     with zipfile.ZipFile(output_zip, 'w') as zipf:
          # Iterate over all files in the geodatabase
          for root, dirs, files in os.walk(input_geodatabase):
               for file in files:
                    # Add each file to the zip file
                    file_path = os.path.join(root, file)
                    if file[-5:] != '.lock':
                         zipf.write(file_path, os.path.relpath(file_path, input_geodatabase))

#input_geodatabase = r"C:\Users\myfile.gdb"
#output_zip = r"C:\Users\myoutputfile.zip"
#zip_geodatabase(input_geodatabase, output_zip)

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

patrick_shp — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 03:13:56 GMT

Slight addendum:

You can't zip the .gdb file directly and upload to portal using this script. It must first be added to a subfolder by itself. So that means that input_geodatabase points to something like r"C:\Users\parent_folder", where "parent_folder" contains only the .gdb file. Hope that makes sense!

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

AndyFairbairn — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 13:41:46 GMT

shutil.make_archive(zipfilename, 'zip', root_dir = r"C:\folder\path\containing_fgdb", base_dir = "file_gdb_name.gdb")‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

This should avoid the need to have your file geodatabase in it's own subfolder before zipping, which I think is required in the above solution.

Re: Zip a file geodatabase using ArcPy or Zipfile library

ARyanWADNR — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 19:57:02 GMT

This was super helpful! But one caution for future users, if you copy and paste the script the last line may cause an invalid character error. For some reason the last line from this discussion page contained a Zero-width joiner, unicode "U+200D".