Difference Between Del, Remove and Pop methods on Lists in Python – Detailed Guide

Python lists provide three methods to remove an element: del, remove and pop.

The main difference between the del, remove, and pop methods are that the del method removes an item using the index, the remove method removes the first matching item from the list, and the pop method removes an item using its index and returns the removed value.

This tutorial teaches you the difference between del, remove and pop methods on lists in python in detail and when it is appropriate to use them.

The below table shows the quick differences. Read the tutorial to understand in detail.

Del Statement	Remove Method	Pop Method
Deletes item based on index	Deletes item based on Value	Deletes item based on index
Supports deleting multiple values	Not possible to delete multiple values at once	Not possible to delete multiple values at once
Throws IndexError when value is not available	Throws ValueError when value is not available	Throws IndexError when value is not available

Del Method

The del statement is used to remove the element using the index in Python.

Del statement is used to

• delete a single element from the list using its index.
• slice a list. This means you can use an index range to remove multiple elements from the list at once.
• Clear the entire list

It throws an IndexError exception when the passed index is out of range of the list indexes. However, while slicing, the slice indexes are silently truncated to be in the allowed range.

Let us see the usage of the del statement with examples.

Code

The code below demonstrates how to remove an item from the list using its index.

List index is 0 based, and while using the index 0, the first element is deleted from the list.

colours = ['Orange', 'White', 'Green', 'Blue']

del colours[0]

colours

Output

The item Orange available at the first position is deleted, and the other three items are available in the list.

    ['White', 'Green', 'Blue']

Using Del Statement to Slice a List

The code below demonstrates how to slice a list using the del statement and the range of the index.

del colours[1:3]

where,
del – statement
colours – list name
1:3 – range of items to be deleted. The first index is inclusive, and the second index is exclusive.

Example

Here, you’ll use the range 1:3 with the del statement. The index is 0 based. Hence, the del statement deletes the second and third element.

colours = ['Orange', 'White', 'Green', 'Blue']

del colours[1:3]

colours

Output

The second and the third elements are deleted based on indexes 1 and 2. The other two elements are available in the list.

    ['Orange', 'Blue']

This is the usage of the del statement.

Remove Method

The remove() method is used to remove the first matching item from the list.

The remove() method removes an item using its value instead of the index.

String values parameter is case-sensitive in the remove() method.

A valueError exception is thrown when the passed value is unavailable in the list.

Code

The code below demonstrates how to delete an item from the list using the remove() method.

The value to be deleted is directly passed to the remove() method.

colours = ['Orange', 'White', 'Green', 'Blue']

colours.remove('Orange')

colours

Output

The value Orange is removed from the list.

    ['White', 'Green', 'Blue']

Now let us see what happens when a value is not present in the list.

The o is passed in a lower case. But the item in the list is available with the upper case O.

colours = ['Orange', 'White', 'Green', 'Blue']

colours.remove('orange')

colours

Output

Hence you’ll see a ValueError.

ValueError                                Traceback (most recent call last)
/var/folders/gb/T/ipykernel_15464/2243630193.py in <module>
      1 colours = ['Orange', 'White', 'Green', 'Blue']
      2 
----> 3 colours.remove('orange')
      4 
      5 colours

ValueError: list.remove(x): x not in list

This is the usage of the remove() method.

Pop Method

The pop() method removes and returns the item at the specified index of the list.

The pop() method removes an item using its index instead of the value. After removing the item, it also returns the removed item. Hence, you can use the pop() method when you want to use the removed item for your operations.

If no index is passed to the pop() method, the last element of the list is removed.

Code

The code below demonstrates how to remove the first item from the list using the pop() method.

The index is 0-based. Hence to remove the first item, 0 is passed.

colours = ['Orange', 'White', 'Green', 'Blue']

colours.pop(0)

Output

After removing the item Orange, it returns it. Hence, you’ll see the removed item as output.

    'Orange'

This is the usage of the pop() method.

Pop from End of List

To remove the last item from the list using the pop() method, you can just invoke the pop() method without passing any index. Alternatively, you can also pass -1 as a parameter.

To get the last element from the list before removing it, read How To Get The Last Element Of A List In Python.

Code

colours = ['Orange', 'White', 'Green', 'Blue']

colours.pop()

Output

The last item is removed from the list and returned.

    'Blue'

Conclusion

Removing an item from the list has multiple options. You’ve learned the difference between del, remove and pop methods to remove an item from the list in Python.

You’ve also learned when it is appropriate to use these different methods.

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