Working with Files
Learn how to work with the file system in Node.js: reading, writing, creating, and managing files and folders.

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Working with the file system is one of Node.js’s strengths. Unlike JavaScript in the browser, Node.js can read and write files, making it ideal for build tools, scripts, and server applications that need to persist data.

In this unit, you’ll learn how to work with files in Node.js. We’ll cover reading files both synchronously and asynchronously, writing and appending to files, creating and removing directories, working with file paths, and streaming large files efficiently.

These file system skills are essential for building Node.js applications that interact with the local filesystem, from simple scripts to complex build tools and server applications.

Lessons in this unit:

0: ▶︎ Introduction
1: How to check if a file exists in Node.js
2: How to create an empty file in Node.js
3: How to get the names of all the files in a folder in Node
4: How to get the last updated date of a file using Node.js
5: How to remove a file with Node.js
6: How to write a JSON object to file in Node.js
7: How to empty a folder in Node.js
8: Working with file descriptors in Node
9: Node File Paths
10: Node file stats
11: Working with folders in Node
12: How to use the Node.js fs module with async/await
13: How to get the current folder in Node
14: How to get the file extension in Node.js from the MIME type
15: How to get the file extension in Node.js
16: How to list files in a folder in Node
17: How to mass rename files in Node.js
18: Node.js get all files in a folder recursively
19: Incrementing multiple folders numbers at once using Node.js
20: Save some text to a file in Node.js