path = os.path.join(reloc.PREFIX, "temp", "autopackage.temp") print path try: os.remove(path) except: print "Error!!" print os.path.exists(path) Gives the following output: /home/hylke/dev-department/starez/src/client/temp/autopackage.temp False And then in my console: hylke@hylke-desktop:~/dev-department/starez/src/client$ [[ -f /home/hylke/dev-department/starez/src/client/temp/autopackage.temp ]] && echo "file exists!" file exists! hylke@hylke-desktop:~/dev-department/starez/src/client$