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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-20T04:43:26+00:00

I needed a mechanism in Python using which I could detect whether a file

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I needed a mechanism in Python using which I could detect whether a file is open by some other application or not. For Windows, a solution which worked for me was trying to rename the file. Windows doesn’t allow you to rename a file if its still open by some other application.

Unfortunately this didn’t work on a Mac. Mac OS X allows you to rename a file while it is open by some other application. It seems to be a useful feature purposely built into the system (see “Rename open files”).

What could be an alternative solution for Mac OS X so that I could figure out whether any application is holding a file or not?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Try os.open with O_EXLOCK flag.

    This might be not a general solution, but it should work on Unix like systems, including Mac.

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