platform-independent way to fetch pictures folder?

Question

I am trying to make some image manipulation software. On many popular operating systems there would be a default picture folder. For example:

Mac: /User/corvid/Pictures/
Ubuntu: /home/corvid/Pictures/
Windows: C:\\user\\corvid\\My Pictures

I know of a way to make it work for windows based on this question

from win32com.shell import shell, shellcon
print shell.SHGetFolderPath(0, shellcon.CSIDL_MYPICTURES, None, 0)

However, is there a way to make this a bit more generic? Is there a way to fetch the "Pictures" directory in a platform-independent way?

Are you sure it's "My Pictures" on Windows, not just "Pictures"? — BartoszKP, Oct 28 '14 at 21:37
it might be, was just using a possible example to show differences — corvid, Oct 28 '14 at 21:40
On Vista and Windows 7 "Pictures" definitely works, so maybe wim's answer is just fine. Not sure about older versions. — BartoszKP, Oct 28 '14 at 21:41

wim · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-29T17:14:40.670

2

This works on Mac, Linux, and Windows:

from pathlib import Path
path = Path.home() / "Pictures"

edited Oct 29 '21 at 17:14

answered Oct 28 '14 at 21:33

wim

Use `os.path.sep` instead of `/` – Ben Oct 28 '14 at 21:34
Oh, I didn't notice the "My" on windows... d'oh! – wim Oct 28 '14 at 21:36
2

@wim It may be a mistake in the question itself ;0 - on my Vista it's "Pictures", and on another machine with Windows 7 also. – BartoszKP Oct 28 '14 at 21:36
1

in contradiction to other systems on Linux the name could be different in different languages (MacOS and Windows make rename in the user interface). For example on my machine, it is `/home/useri/Obrazy`, where "Obrazy" is the translation of "Pictures" for Polish. – Grzegorz Bokota Oct 29 '21 at 08:21

latetotheparty · Answer 2 · 2020-03-01T15:55:21.497

0

from os import environ
import os.path

pictures = os.path.join(environ["USERPROFILE"], "Pictures")

edited Mar 01 '20 at 15:55

answered Feb 29 '20 at 15:45

latetotheparty

2 Answers2