How to Remove an imported module in Python

# Remove an imported module in Python

To remove an imported module in Python:

1. Use the del statement to delete the sys reference to the module.
2. Use the del statement to remove the direct reference to the module.

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import sys
import requests

# 👇️ <function get at 0x7f8c7d30e4d0>
print(requests.get)

# ✅ remove an imported module
del sys.modules['requests']
del requests

# ⛔️ NameError: name 'X' is not defined
print(requests.get)

The first step is to delete the sys.modules reference to the module we are trying to unload.

Sys.modules is a dictionary that maps module names to modules that have already been loaded.

The dictionary is most commonly used to force reload modules.

This is necessary because even if we delete the direct reference to the module, we'd still have a reference to it with the sys.modules dictionary.

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import sys
import requests

# 👇️ <function get at 0x7f8c7d30e4d0>
print(requests.get)

del requests

# 👇️ <module 'requests' from '/home/borislav/Desktop/bobbyhadz_python/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/requests/__init__.py'>
print(sys.modules['requests'])

For the module to get garbage collected, we have to delete the key from the sys.modules dictionary and delete the direct reference to the module.

# Reloading a previously imported module

It can sometimes be tricky to unload a module. An alternative you can try is to reload the module using the importlib.reload() method.

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from importlib import reload
import requests

if len('a') == 1:
    requests = reload(requests)

# 👇️ <function get at 0x7f5cddf024d0>
print(requests.get)

The importlib.reload() method reloads a previously imported module.

The argument to the method must be a module object that has been successfully imported (prior to reloading it).

The reload() method returns the module object, so you can directly reassign the module to the result of calling reload(module).

I've also written an article on how to not run a module's code when it is imported.

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

• Remove Newline characters from a List or a String in Python
• Remove non-alphanumeric characters from a Python string
• Remove non-ASCII characters from a string in Python
• Remove the non utf-8 characters from a String in Python
• How to Remove the None values from a Dictionary in Python
• How to Remove the None values from a List in Python
• 'EntryPoints' object has no attribute 'get' error [Solved]
• How to import all Functions from a File in Python