title: How to check if folder is empty with Python?
body: <p>I am trying to check if a folder is empty and do the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import os
  downloadsFolder = '../../Downloads/'
  if not os.listdir(downloadsFolder):
      print "empty"
  else:
      print "not empty"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Unfortunately, I always get "not empty" no matter if I have any files in that folder or not. Is it because there might be some hidden system files? Is there a way to modify the above code to check just for not hidden files?</p>