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?

Solution 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!

Solution 2

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

from tkinter.filedialog import askopenfilename
filename = askopenfilename()

Solution 3

With EasyGui:

import easygui
print(easygui.fileopenbox())

To install:

pip install easygui

Demo:

import easygui
easygui.egdemo()

Solution 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()

Solution 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)

View more solutions

Comments

[Priya]

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

[user391339]

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

[user391339]

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

[imallett]

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

[Yonatan Naor]

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

[WestAce]

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

[Ben]

@WestAce yes, it was changed from "Tkinter" to "tkinter" for Python3

[Ben Vincent]

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

[Cabara]

same here. the file dialog won't close

[eric]

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

[Christopher Barber]

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.

[Bricktop]

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

[jfs]

@Bricktop stackoverflow.com/questions/826948/… ?

[gaya]

@ChristopherBarber same with 10.14.6. Python just keeps quitting.

[gaya]

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

[miguelmorin]

It is not part of standard installation in Python 3.

[Shantanu Shinde]

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

[Craig]

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

[Rafael Ruales]

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

[CalfCrusher]

it makes python 3.9 crash on OSX 10.11.6

[Rich Lysakowski PhD]

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

[Priya]

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

[Marc]

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

[HelpMeCode]

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

[HelpMeCode]

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