import os link_txt = open(r"C:\Users\Fenoglia\Downloads\cmip6-scripts\links.txt", 'r', encoding='utf-8') existing_links = os.listdir(r"C:\Users\Fenoglia\Downloads\cmip6-scripts\cmip-xmls") links = link_txt.read().split('\n') link_txt.close() file_name_set = set() link_set = set() for link in links: link_set.add(link) file_name = link.split("#")[0].split('/')[-1] if file_name in existing_links: continue else: print(link)