Tkinter tkFileDialog module

tkFileDialog is a module with open and save dialog functions. Instead of implementing those in Tkinter GUI on your own.

This page is a collection of python tkinter file dialogs. The code is displayed here along with screenshots. Dialogs included in tkinter let you ask for a filename or directory.

tkinter file dialogs are easy to use, but not that easy to find out how to use. The main problem is that there is no simple example of how to do it. This article tries to fill the gap.

Related course:

• Python Desktop Apps with Tkinter

Tkinter Open File

The askopenfilename function to creates an file dialog object. The extensions are shown in the bottom of the form (Files of type).

tkinter.tk.askopenfilename is an extension of the askopenfilename function provided in Tcl/Tk.

The code below will simply show the dialog and return the filename. If a user presses cancel the filename is empty. On a Windows machine change the initialdir to “C:\”.

Python 2.7 version:

from Tkinter import *from Tkinter import *
import Tkinter, Tkconstants, tkFileDialog

root = Tk()
root.filename = tkFileDialog.askopenfilename(initialdir = "/",title = "Select file",filetypes = (("jpeg files","*.jpg"),("all files","*.*")))
print (root.filename)

Python 3 version:

from tkinter import filedialog
from tkinter import *

root = Tk()
root.filename =  filedialog.askopenfilename(initialdir = "/",title = "Select file",filetypes = (("jpeg files","*.jpg"),("all files","*.*")))
print (root.filename)

Here is an example (on Linux):

tkfiledialog Tkinter askopenfilename

Tkinter Save File

The asksaveasfilename function prompts the user with a save file dialog.

Python 2.7 version

from Tkinter import *
import Tkinter, Tkconstants, tkFileDialog
 
root = Tk()
root.filename = tkFileDialog.asksaveasfilename(initialdir = "/",title = "Select file",filetypes = (("jpeg files","*.jpg"),("all files","*.*")))
print (root.filename)

Python 3 version

from tkinter import filedialog
from tkinter import *

root = Tk()
root.filename =  filedialog.asksaveasfilename(initialdir = "/",title = "Select file",filetypes = (("jpeg files","*.jpg"),("all files","*.*")))
print (root.filename)

Tkinter Open Directory

Consider a scenario where your program needs to get a directory, the user clicked on the ok button and now you want to determine the path.

The askdirectory presents the user with a popup for directory selection.

Python 2.7 version

from  Tkinter import *
import Tkinter, Tkconstants, tkFileDialog
root = Tk()
root.directory = tkFileDialog.askdirectory()
print (root.directory)

tkinter askdirectory

If you are new to programming Tkinter, I highly recommend this course.

download tkinter examples

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