than the one where your program file is storedyou need to provide file pathwhich tells python to look in specific location on your system because text_files is inside python_workyou could use relative file path to open file from text_files relative file path tells python to look for given location relative to the directory where the currently running program file is stored on linux and os xyou' writewith open('text_files/filename txt'as file_objectthis line tells python to look for the desired txt file in the folder text_files and assumes that text_files is located inside python_work (which it ison windows systemsyou use backslash (\instead of forward slash (/in the file pathwith open('text_files\filename txt'as file_objectyou can also tell python exactly where the file is on your computer regardless of where the program that' being executed is stored this is called an absolute file path you use an absolute path if relative path doesn' work for instanceif you've put text_files in some folder other than python_work--saya folder called other_files--then just passing open(the path 'text_files/filename txtwon' work because python will only look for that location inside python_work you'll need to write out full path to clarify where you want python to look absolute paths are usually longer than relative pathsso it' helpful to store them in variable and then pass that variable to open(on linux and os xabsolute paths look like thisfile_path '/home/ehmatthes/other_files/text_files/filename txtwith open(file_pathas file_objectand on windows they look like thisfile_path ' :\users\ehmatthes\other_files\text_files\filename txtwith open(file_pathas file_objectusing absolute pathsyou can read files from any location on your system for now it' easiest to store files in the same directory as your program files or in folder such as text_files within the directory that stores your program files note windows systems will sometimes interpret forward slashes in file paths correctly if you're using windows and you're not getting the results you expectmake sure you try using backslashes