Set tkinter icon on Mac OS

Question

I am trying to change the icon that appears on my tk application for Mac OS. The last time I checked this code worked for windows. The goal is for this solution to work across all platforms.

root = tk.Tk()
app = Application(master=root)

app.master.iconbitmap("my_icon.ico")

app.mainloop()

The code is adding the default icon for a .pdf file which is not what I intended. The path to the my_icon.ico is correct. Why won't this work for Mac OS? Is there an ultimate solution that will work cross-platform?

Answer 1

If you are using Mac OS you have to use a .icns image instead a .ico image.

you can use:

from tkinter import Tk
from platform import system

platformD = system()
if platformD == 'Darwin':

    logo_image = 'images/logo.icns'

elif platformD == 'Windows':

    logo_image = 'images/logo.ico'

else:

    logo_image = 'images/logo.xbm'

root = Tk()
root.title("My App")
root.iconbitmap(logo_image)
root.resizable(0, 0)
root.mainloop()

Answer 2

Important Note: This method is long and a lot of work for the task at hand. However, it does come with some unrelated benefits. Note that there might be a better way, but this will work.
Anyway, moving on....

You can use py2app.

Py2app will turn your program into a .app, meaning it runs as an application (because it is). When using tkinter this is usually what you want in the end because GUIs are usually turned into apps for ease of use. You can read the py2app documentation here, or read a non-official but easier to understand (in my opinion) tutorial here. I will also sum up how to do the process.

First install py2app: Enter this into the command prompt:

sudo pip install -U py2app

If successful, you should get py2app. If not, one problem might be you don’t have pip. You can download it with another command:

sudo easy_install pip

Step one: Create a file called setup.py in the same dictionary as the program.

Step two: Put this into the file.

from setuptools import setup

#APP would be the name of the file your code is in.
APP = ['example.py']
DATA_FILES = []
#The Magic is in OPTIONS.
OPTIONS = {
    'argv_emulation': False,
    'iconfile': 'app.icns', #change app.icns to the image file name!!!
    }

setup(
    app=APP,
    name='Your app’s name', #change to anything
    data_files=DATA_FILES,
    options={'py2app': OPTIONS},
    setup_requires=['py2app'],
)

Step 3: Then open the bash terminal in the dictionary the file is in and type this command:

python setup.py py2app -A

The -A makes the app respond to updates in the code, but makes the app unsharable. When you are done developing, rerun the command, this time without the -A, like so:

python setup.py py2app

Note: You may need to use the command python3 setup.py py2... instead of python setup.py py2... for a python 3 py2app.

Step 4: Navigate to the dictionary your code is in/dist. In that folder will be your app. (The dist folder should have been created in step three when you ran the command)

For windows users: py2app is not what should be used, instead use py2exe.

Answer 3

I found a solution that worked for me, changing the application icon rather than the window icon using the pyobjc module.

import tkinter as tk
import sys

root = tk.Tk()

if sys.platform.startswith('darwin'):
    try:
        from Cocoa import NSApplication, NSImage
    except ImportError:
        print('Unable to import pyobjc modules')
    else:
        ns_application = NSApplication.sharedApplication()
        logo_ns_image = NSImage.alloc().initByReferencingFile_('/path/to/icon.icns')
        ns_application.setApplicationIconImage_(logo_ns_image)
else:
    pass # handle other platforms

root.mainloop()