“Freezing” your code is creating a single-file executable file to distributeto end-users, that contains all of your application code as well as thePython interpreter.
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Nov 25, 2009 I can't find any gcc related binary under /usr/bin and no libs under /usr/lib so I guess something went wrong during installation (even though, that doesn't explain how come I can compile via Xcode). I have just rememberd that I installed Xcode on my Data disc instead of my Mac OSX system disc because of space imitation issues. Python is a free, open-source interpreted language that stands out for its versatility in supporting several programming paradigms, whether utilizing object-oriented language or imperative syntax, or using its command line to work in a functional way, as with languages like Haskell. Jan 30, 2020 I'm a VERY inexperienced python user, but have built a couple of very basic scripts with an small interactive UI (using Tkinter/pyodbc). My question is - once the script is converted to.exe and distributed to the users (who will save and launch from the desktops), do they need to have anything else installed, or is the.exe truly fully self contained?

Applications such as ‘Dropbox’, ‘Eve Online’, ‘Civilization IV’, andBitTorrent clients do this.
The advantage of distributing this way is that your application will “just work”,even if the user doesn’t already have the required version of Python (or any)installed. On Windows, and even on many Linux distributions and OS X, the rightversion of Python will not already be installed.
Besides, end-user software should always be in an executable format. Filesending in .py
are for software engineers and system administrators.
One disadvantage of freezing is that it will increase the size of yourdistribution by about 2–12 MB. Also, you will be responsible for shippingupdated versions of your application when security vulnerabilities toPython are patched.
Alternatives to Freezing¶
Packaging your code is for distributinglibraries or tools to other developers.
On Linux, an alternative to freezing is tocreate a Linux distro package(e.g. .deb files for Debian or Ubuntu, or .rpm files for Red Hat and SuSE.)
Comparison of Freezing Tools¶
Date of this writing: Oct 5, 2019Solutions and platforms/features supported:
Solution | Windows | Linux | OS X | Python 3 | License | One-file mode | Zipfile import | Eggs | pkg_resources support | Latest release date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
bbFreeze | yes | yes | yes | no | MIT | no | yes | yes | yes | Jan 20, 2014 |
py2exe | yes | no | no | yes | MIT | yes | yes | no | no | Oct 21, 2014 |
pyInstaller | yes | yes | yes | yes | GPL | yes | no | yes | no | Jul 9, 2019 |
cx_Freeze | yes | yes | yes | yes | PSF | no | yes | yes | no | Aug 29, 2019 |
py2app | no | no | yes | yes | MIT | no | yes | yes | yes | Mar 25, 2019 |
Note
Freezing Python code on Linux into a Windows executable was only oncesupported in PyInstaller and later dropped.
Note
All solutions need a Microsoft Visual C++ to be installed on the target machine, except py2app.Only PyInstaller makes a self-executable exe that bundles the appropriate DLL whenpassing --onefile
to Configure.py
.
Windows¶
bbFreeze¶
Prerequisite is to install Python, Setuptools and pywin32 dependency on Windows.
- Install
bbfreeze
:
- Write most basic
bb_setup.py
Note
This will work for the most basic one file scripts. For more advanced freezing you will have to provideinclude and exclude paths like so:
- (Optionally) include icon
4. Provide the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime DLL for the freezer. It might be possible to append your sys.path
with the Microsoft Visual Studio path but I find it easier to drop msvcp90.dll
in the same folder where your scriptresides.
- Freeze!
py2exe¶
Prerequisite is to install Python on Windows. The last release of py2exe is from the year 2014. There is not active development.
- Download and install http://sourceforge.net/projects/py2exe/files/py2exe/
- Write
setup.py
(List of configuration options):
- (Optionally) include icon
- (Optionally) one-file mode
- Generate
.exe
intodist
directory:
- Provide the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime DLL. Two options: globally install dll on target machine or distribute dll alongside with .exe.
PyInstaller¶
Prerequisite is to have installed Python, Setuptools and pywin32 dependency on Windows.
OS X¶
PyInstaller¶
PyInstaller can be used to build Unix executables and windowed apps on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or newer.
To install PyInstaller, use pip:
To create a standard Unix executable, from say script.py
, use:
This creates:
- a
script.spec
file, analogous to amake
file - a
build
folder, that holds some log files - a
dist
folder, that holds the main executablescript
, and some dependent Python libraries
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all in the same folder as script.py
. PyInstaller puts all the Python libraries used in script.py
into the dist
folder, so when distributing the executable, distribute the whole dist
folder.
The script.spec
file can be edited to customise the build, with options such as:
- bundling data files with the executable
- including run-time libraries (
.dll
or.so
files) that PyInstaller can’t infer automatically - adding Python run-time options to the executable
Now script.spec
can be run with pyinstaller
(instead of using script.py
again):
To create a standalone windowed OS X application, use the --windowed
option:
This creates a script.app
in the dist
folder. Make sure to use GUI packages in your Python code, like PyQt or PySide, to control the graphical parts of the app.
There are several options in script.spec
related to Mac OS X app bundles here. For example, to specify an icon for the app, use the icon=pathtoicon.icns
option.
Linux¶
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bbFreeze¶

Warning
bbFreeze will ONLY work in Python 2.x environment, since it’s no longer being maintained as stated by it’s former maintainer. If you’re interested in it, check the repository in here.
bbFreeze can be used with all distributions that has Python installed along with pip2 and/or easy_install.
For pip2, use the following:
Or, for easy_install:
With bbFreeze installed, you’re ready to freeze your applications.
Let’s assume you have a script, say, “hello.py” and a module called “module.py” and you have a function in it that’s being used in your script.No need to worry, you can just ask to freeze the main entrypoint of your script and it should freeze entirely:
With this, it creates a folder called dist/, of which contains the executable of the script and required .so (shared objects) files linked against libraries used within the Python script.
Alternatively, you can create a script that does the freezing for you. An API for the freezer is available from the library within:
PyInstaller¶
PyInstaller can be used in a similar fashion as in OS X. The installation goes in the same manner as shown in the OS X section.
Don’t forget to have dependencies such as Python and pip installed for usage.