detecting idle time using python

Question

How do I detect if the system is idle on Windows using Python (i.e. no keyboard or mouse activity). This has already been asked before, but there doesn't seem to be a GetLastInputInfo in the pywin32 module.

Answer 1

from ctypes import Structure, windll, c_uint, sizeof, byref

class LASTINPUTINFO(Structure):
    _fields_ = [
        ('cbSize', c_uint),
        ('dwTime', c_uint),
    ]

def get_idle_duration():
    lastInputInfo = LASTINPUTINFO()
    lastInputInfo.cbSize = sizeof(lastInputInfo)
    windll.user32.GetLastInputInfo(byref(lastInputInfo))
    millis = windll.kernel32.GetTickCount() - lastInputInfo.dwTime
    return millis / 1000.0

Call get_idle_duration() to get idle time in seconds.

Answer 2

import win32api
def getIdleTime():
    return (win32api.GetTickCount() - win32api.GetLastInputInfo()) / 1000.0

Answer 3

Seems like GetLastInputInfo is now available in pywin32:

win32api.GetLastInputInfo()

does the trick and returns the timer tick from the last user input action.

Here with an example program

import time
import win32api
for i in range(10):
   print(win32api.GetLastInputInfo())
   time.sleep(1)

If one presses a key/moves the mouse while the script sleeps, the printed number changes.

Answer 4

@FogleBird's answer is pretty cool and working, but in a hurry i wasn't sure how it works, so a little test example here. A thread is starting, looking for last idle time every 10 seconds. If any movement is made within this time window, it will be printed out.

from ctypes import Structure, windll, c_uint, sizeof, byref
import threading

//Print out every n seconds the idle time, when moving mouse, this should be < 10
def printit():
  threading.Timer(10.0, printit).start()
  print get_idle_duration()



class LASTINPUTINFO(Structure):
    _fields_ = [
        ('cbSize', c_uint),
        ('dwTime', c_uint),
    ]

def get_idle_duration():
    lastInputInfo = LASTINPUTINFO()
    lastInputInfo.cbSize = sizeof(lastInputInfo)
    windll.user32.GetLastInputInfo(byref(lastInputInfo))
    millis = windll.kernel32.GetTickCount() - lastInputInfo.dwTime
    return millis / 1000.0

printit()

Answer 5

There's basically two types of answers so far. One using pywin32 (via win32api and one using ctypes. The only thing I could think of distinguishing them would be time of execution, so here are the results of a timeit test:

# idlefuncs.py

import ctypes
from ctypes import Structure, c_uint, sizeof, byref

import win32api

user32 = ctypes.WinDLL("user32", use_last_error=True)
kernel32 = ctypes.WinDLL("kernel32", use_last_error=True)

class LASTINPUTINFO(Structure):
    _fields_ = [
        ('cbSize', c_uint),
        ('dwTime', c_uint),
    ]


def get_idle_duration():
    lastInputInfo = LASTINPUTINFO()
    lastInputInfo.cbSize = sizeof(lastInputInfo)
    user32.GetLastInputInfo(byref(lastInputInfo))
    millis = kernel32.GetTickCount() - lastInputInfo.dwTime
    return millis / 1000.0


def getIdleTime():
    return (win32api.GetTickCount() - win32api.GetLastInputInfo()) / 1000.0

In ipython:

In[1]: from idlefuncs import *

In[2]: %timeit get_idle_duration()
1.21 µs ± 12 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1000000 loops each)
In[4]: %timeit getIdleTime()
465 ns ± 7.69 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1000000 loops each)

Contrary to my expectations, the ctypes version takes 2.6 times as long!

Answer 6

Actually, you can access GetLastInputInfo via the cytpes library:

import ctypes
GetLastInputInfo = ctypes.windll.User32.GetLastInputInfo  # callable function pointer

This might not be what you want though, as it does not provide idle information across the whole system, but only about the session that called the function. See MSDN docs.

Alternatively, you could check if the system is locked, or if the screen-saver has been started.