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Create a standalone executable of a Python app

Alternatives

Most popular options:

Other alternatives:

Using pyinstaller

It's pretty straight forward: 1. Create an entry-point script that calls your main function. 2. Install PyInstaller. 3. Run PyInstaller on your entry-point. 4. Test your new executable. 5. Ship your resulting dist/ folder to users.

Install

To install pyinstaller on your pc run (more details can be found here: https://www.pyinstaller.org/):

pip install pyinstaller

For a single file program

If your program is a single script use cmd to go to your program directory and to turn it into a exe folder run

pyinstaller myprogram.py

For a package

Create an entrypoint outside your package folder that imports and runs your program. This will be the entry point. Call pyinstaller on the entrypoint script as above.

Options

Change the name of your executable: 

pyinstaller myprogram.py --name MY_PROGRAM

Package your entire application into a single executable file: 

pyinstaller myprogram.py --onefile

Insert additional data or binary files into your build: 

pyinstaller myprogram.py --add-data data/file.csv

Exclude some modules from being included with your executable: 

pyinstaller myprogram.py --exclude-module=pytest

Avoid automatically opening a console window for stdout logging: 

pyinstaller myprogram.py -w

What I usually run: 

pyinstaller -F --windowed --icon=myapp.ico myprogram.py

This makes it a single exe (without the folders with all dependables) but is slightly slower, minimizes the console window sine I have a GUI, and gives it a snazzy icon that I had saved (you have to copy over the icon, or have an exception incase it isn't found)

References