"Unicode Error "unicodeescape" codec can't decode bytes... Cannot open text files in Python 3

This error typically occurs when a string literal contains backslashes that Python interprets as escape sequences (like \n or \t), or when reading file contents that contain unrecognized escape characters. Here's a code snippet that shows how to properly open a file in Python 3 using the built-in open() function and a raw string literal for the path:

properly open a file in Python 3

file_path = r"C:\my_folder\my_file.txt"

try:
    with open(file_path, "r") as f:
        content = f.read()
        print(content)
except IOError:
    print(f"Error opening or reading file: {file_path}")

<div class="alert alert-info flex not-prose"> <span class="hidden md:block">Watch a video course </span> Python - The Practical Guide</div>

This code uses the built-in open() function with a raw string literal (r"...") for the file path. The r prefix tells Python to treat backslashes as literal characters, preventing them from being interpreted as escape sequences. For standard text files, you can omit the encoding parameter or explicitly set it to "utf-8".