Is there a sendKey for Mac in Python?

Question

In Mac 10.6, I want to cause an active application to become de-active, or minimized by Python

I know I could use sendKey in Windows with Python, then what about in Mac?

sendkeys is a windows api to send a keypress to an application window progmatically. — Fusspawn, Nov 20 '09 at 15:24

score 34 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 12 '15 at 02:39

34

Here is what I found from a different question on Stack Overflow. It works pretty good for my problem.

import os
cmd = """
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to keystroke "m" using {command down}' 
"""
# minimize active window
os.system(cmd)

edited Apr 12 '15 at 02:39

AstroCB

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answered Nov 20 '09 at 14:10

Yinan

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I was looking for how to do this in Ruby and the same idea can be used as well... `puts \`osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to keystroke "m" using {command down}'\`` or pass in a file to do additional osascripting `puts \`osascript example.as\`` – danmayer Jan 04 '12 at 04:16

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 22 '11 at 18:28

8

Try appscript, an Apple event bridge available in PyPI:

from appscript import app, k
app('System Events').keystroke('N', using=k.command_down)

answered Dec 22 '11 at 18:28

Alan Christopher Thomas

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Please note that appscript is no longer developed or supported, and its use is not recommended for new projects. – tester Dec 03 '13 at 06:48

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 17 '10 at 03:35

In addition to Yinan, which will send the keystroke to the currently active application, you can send it to a specific application as follows. Pass the following to osascript as before, or save it to a file and pass the file to osascript

tell application "Safari"
    activate
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "r" using {command down}
end tell

This will send Cmd + r to Safari after bringing it to the foreground

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 20 '09 at 14:12

0

Maybe you could run an OSA script (man osascript) from Python, for instance, and drive the application?

answered Nov 20 '09 at 14:12

Eric O. Lebigot

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 14 '15 at 01:43

To make my scripts which already work on Windows using SendKeys from pip also work on OS X, I made a file /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/SendKeys/__init__.py (site-packages is where pip puts everything it installs on my Mac... not sure if that's configurable or not.)

The contents of the file are:

def SendKeys(keys):
    if keys == '{ENTER}'
        keys = 'return'
    from os import system
    system('osascript -e \'tell application "System Events" to keystroke ' + keys + "'")

Obviously it's not very robust, so I won't be putting it on pypi, but it's enough to make my scripts run on both OS X and Windows.

Is there a sendKey for Mac in Python?

5 Answers5

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