Python os.rename issues: FileNotFoundError: [WinError 3] The system cannot find the path specified

Question

I've browsed around for an answer to this before posting but couldn't find one that worked for me.

So essentially what I'm doing is taking a list of selenium elements, converting them to just text in a new array, and then trying to rename the file in my downloads directory.
Upon reaching this loop I get the error.
Does the new file have to exist in order to rename it?

for count, filename in enumerate(os.listdir("C:/Users/user/Downloads")):
    dst1 = titlelist[count] + ".mp4"
    src = 'C:/Users/user/Downloads/'+ filename
    dst = 'C:/Users/user/Downloads/'+ dst1
    os.rename(src, dst)

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

To access Windows paths you need to use backslahes, and as the backslash is the escape character, you need to use two of them to include them in the string.

Instead of writing C:/Users/user you should write C:\\Users\\user

Answer 2

I know it sounds silly, but, you may wanna check the permissions on the folder and files

print("Source File Permission : %s" % os.access(src ,os.W_OK))
print("Destination File Permission : %s" % os.access(dst , os.W_OK))

in your case I would be tempted to try something like:

if os.access('C:/Users/user/Downloads/', os.W_OK):
    os.rename(src, dst)