Choosing a file in Python with simple Dialog

Question

I would like to get file path as input in my Python console application.

Currently I can only ask for full path as an input in the console.

Is there a way to trigger a simple user interface where users can select file instead of typing the full path?

Valdis

Good question. I was just looking for this. I upvoted it. Thanks! – Blastoderm

Answer 1

How about using tkinter?

from Tkinter import Tk     # from tkinter import Tk for Python 3.x
from tkinter.filedialog import askopenfilename

Tk().withdraw() # we don't want a full GUI, so keep the root window from appearing
filename = askopenfilename() # show an "Open" dialog box and return the path to the selected file
print(filename)

Done!

Tepper

I got TypeError: 'module' object is not callable on Tk().withdraw() - any ideas? – Brina

I had to do root = Tk.Tk() then root.withdraw(). Now the open file dialog window does not close however. – Brina

Using Python 3.x and I believe "Tkinter" is actually supposed to be all lowercase, "tkinter". – Goodfellowship

@Goodfellowship yes, it was changed from "Tkinter" to "tkinter" for Python3 – Isabea

Is there any way to allow only certain types of files? for eg. I want the user to select image files only – Chinachinaberry

@ShantanuShinde I think this may work: filename = askopenfilename(filetypes=[("Image files", "*.png"), ("All Files", "*.*")]) – Ishmael

@Tepper Awesome. This work perfect for me. I did not wanted to do a whole GUI just for selecting a file purpose – Blastoderm

Py3 code doesn't work. See @Sainath Reddy at the bottom here. – Kobold

Answer 2

Python 3.x version of Etaoin's answer for completeness:

from tkinter.filedialog import askopenfilename
filename = askopenfilename()

Capelin

For total parallelism, should probably also have import tkinter + tkinter.Tk().withdraw(). – Florence

this does not work for me (on Mac, Python 3.6.6) The GUI window opens but you cannot close it and you get beachball of death – Trehalose

same here. the file dialog won't close – Orris

this code is the exact same as the accepted answer but incomplete. – Luffa

On Mac 10.14.6, this opened the File finder then it just crashed the entire system :( – Hutcherson

This code crashes Jupyter Notebook v6.1.5 on Windows 10. – Linsk

How would I then read this file path into a pd.read_excel() @StefanoPalazzo? – Larisa

Answer 3

With EasyGui:

import easygui
print(easygui.fileopenbox())

To install:

pip install easygui

Demo:

import easygui
easygui.egdemo()

Dendrite

This is the best solution so far. The main reason is that easygui is a pip package and easy to install – Cement

On Mac OSX 10.14.5, python 3.6.7, easygui 0.98.1 I get a horrible crash when I try this. Not recommended. – Franklyn

Why am I getting invalid syntax error for print easygui.diropenbox()? – Fireproofing

@Fireproofing #827448 ? – Dendrite

@ChristopherBarber same with 10.14.6. Python just keeps quitting. – Hutcherson

This appears to be for Python 2 as easygui attempts to import Tkinter instead of tkinter – Lowther

it makes python 3.9 crash on OSX 10.11.6 – Bloch

Answer 4

In Python 2 use the tkFileDialog module.

import tkFileDialog

tkFileDialog.askopenfilename()

In Python 3 use the tkinter.filedialog module.

import tkinter.filedialog

tkinter.filedialog.askopenfilename()

Chickaree

It is not part of standard installation in Python 3. – Thales

Answer 5

This worked for me

Reference : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H71ts4XxWYU

import  tkinter as tk
from tkinter import filedialog
root = tk.Tk()
root.withdraw()
file_path = filedialog.askopenfilename()
print(file_path)

Nonessential

How would I then take this file path and put it into a pandas data frame (if the file was, say, from excel) pd.read_excel(r'file_path') does not work @SainathReddy – Larisa

If you print out file_path you will see that it contains forward slashes instead of backwards slashes. Therefore, pandas can handle it across platforms (e.g. Windows and Linux). pd.read_excel(file_path) is all you need. – Hydrosphere

Answer 6

The suggested root.withdraw() (also here) hides the window instead of deleting it, and was causing problems when using interactive console in VS Code ("duplicate execution" error).

Below two snippets to return the file path in "Open" or "Save As" (python 3 on Windows):

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import filedialog

filetypes = (
    ('Text files', '*.TXT'),
    ('All files', '*.*'),
)

# open-file dialog
root = tk.Tk()
filename = tk.filedialog.askopenfilename(
    title='Select a file...',
    filetypes=filetypes,
)
root.destroy()
print(filename)

# save-as dialog
root = tk.Tk()
filename = tk.filedialog.asksaveasfilename(
    title='Save as...',
    filetypes=filetypes,
    defaultextension='.txt'
)
root.destroy()
print(filename)
# filename == 'path/to/myfilename.txt' if you type 'myfilename'
# filename == 'path/to/myfilename.abc' if you type 'myfilename.abc'

Myxomycete

On a Mac in Python 3.10.1 with Tcl/Tk version 8.6 I had to use a list of tuples to not get an error: filetypes = [('Text files', '*.TXT'),('All files', '*.*')] (note the square brackets). With a tuple of tuples (normal brackets instead of square ones) as in the example above I received s = master.tk.call(self.command, *master._options(self.options)) _tkinter.TclError: bad Macintosh file type "files" (but note that I used a different file type than in the example, and only a single file type). – Deleterious

Answer 7

Another option to consider is Zenity: http://freecode.com/projects/zenity.

I had a situation where I was developing a Python server application (no GUI component) and hence didn't want to introduce a dependency on any python GUI toolkits, but I wanted some of my debug scripts to be parameterized by input files and wanted to visually prompt the user for a file if they didn't specify one on the command line. Zenity was a perfect fit. To achieve this, invoke "zenity --file-selection" using the subprocess module and capture the stdout. Of course this solution isn't Python-specific.

Zenity supports multiple platforms and happened to already be installed on our dev servers so it facilitated our debugging/development without introducing an unwanted dependency.

Gooseherd

Answer 8

I obtained much better results with wxPython than tkinter, as suggested in this answer to a later duplicate question:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/9319832

The wxPython version produced the file dialog that looked the same as the open file dialog from just about any other application on my OpenSUSE Tumbleweed installation with the xfce desktop, whereas tkinter produced something cramped and hard to read with an unfamiliar side-scrolling interface.

Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane

Answer 9

Using Plyer you can get a native file picker on Windows, macOS, Linux, and even Android.

import plyer

plyer.filechooser.open_file()

There are two other methods, choose_dir and save_file. See details in the docs here.

Corking

This raises a NotImplemented error! – Jhansi

Answer 10

Here is a simple function to show a file chooser right in the terminal window. This method supports selecting multiple files or directories. This has the added benefit of running even in an environment where GUI is not supported.

from os.path import join,isdir
from pathlib import Path
from enquiries import choose,confirm

def dir_chooser(c_dir=getcwd(),selected_dirs=None,multiple=True) :
    '''
        This function shows a file chooser to select single or
        multiple directories.
    '''
    selected_dirs = selected_dirs if selected_dirs else set([])

    dirs = { item for item in listdir(c_dir) if isdir(join(c_dir, item)) }
    dirs = { item for item in dirs if join(c_dir,item) not in selected_dirs and item[0] != "." } # Remove item[0] != "." if you want to show hidde

    options = [ "Select This directory" ]
    options.extend(dirs)
    options.append("⬅")

    info = f"You have selected : \n {','.join(selected_dirs)} \n" if len(selected_dirs) > 0 else "\n"
    choise = choose(f"{info}You are in {c_dir}", options)

    if choise == options[0] :
        selected_dirs.add(c_dir)

        if multiple and confirm("Do you want to select more folders?") :
            return get_folders(Path(c_dir).parent,selected_dirs,multiple)

        return selected_dirs

    if choise == options[-1] :
        return get_folders(Path(c_dir).parent,selected_dirs,multiple)

    return get_folders(join(c_dir,choise),selected_dirs,multiple)

To install enquiers do,

pip install enquiries

Middleoftheroader

unfortunately, enquiries 0.2.0 requires click<8.0.0,>=7.1.2 but many other things requre >=0.8 – Headstrong

Answer 11

I resolved all problem related to from tkinter import * from tkinter import filedialog

by just migrating from pycharm IDE to visual studio code IDE and every problem is solved.

Abiotic