Remove the last element from a list in Python

In this tutorial, we are going to learn about how to remove the last element from a list in Python.

To remove the last element from a list, we can use the built-in pop() method in python

Here is an example, that removes the last element 'skoda' from the following list.

cars = ['bmw', 'benz', 'skoda']
cars.pop()

print(cars)

Output:

['bmw', 'benz']

Similarly, we can also use the del statement with slice notation [-1] to remove the last element of a list.

cars = ['bmw', 'benz', 'skoda']

del cars[-1]

print(cars); # ['bmw', 'benz']

These above methods modify the original list. If you want to keep your original list untouched and create a new list by removing the last element you can use the following slice notation.

cars = ['bmw', 'benz', 'skoda']

print(cars[:-1]) # ['bmw', 'benz']

print(cars) # ['bmw', 'benz', 'skoda']