How to get active window title using Python in Mac?

Question

I am trying to write the Python script which prints the title of the active window using python in Mac OS.

Here is my code:

from AppKit import NSWork         


        

Answer 1

Here is what I used to find both the active application name and window title on Mac OS X using Python by using Quartz API.

First of all, we need to add imports as required:

if sys.platform == "darwin":
    import applescript
    from AppKit import NSWorkspace
    from Quartz import (
        CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo,
        kCGWindowListOptionOnScreenOnly,
        kCGNullWindowID
    )

And then we can get the active app name and window title via the code below:

def getActiveInfo(event_window_num):
    try:
        if sys.platform == "darwin":
            app = NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace().frontmostApplication()
            active_app_name = app.localizedName()

            options = kCGWindowListOptionOnScreenOnly
            windowList = CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo(options, kCGNullWindowID)
            windowTitle = 'Unknown'
            for window in windowList:
                windowNumber = window['kCGWindowNumber']
                ownerName = window['kCGWindowOwnerName']
                # geometry = window['kCGWindowBounds']
                windowTitle = window.get('kCGWindowName', u'Unknown')
                if windowTitle and (
                                event_window_num == windowNumber
                        or ownerName == active_app_name
                ):
                    # log.debug(
                    #     'ownerName=%s, windowName=%s, x=%s, y=%s, '
                    #     'width=%s, height=%s'
                    #     % (window['kCGWindowOwnerName'],
                    #        window.get('kCGWindowName', u'Unknown'),
                    #        geometry['X'],
                    #        geometry['Y'],
                    #        geometry['Width'],
                    #        geometry['Height']))
                    break

            return _review_active_info(active_app_name, windowTitle)
        if sys.platform == "win32":
            (active_app_name, windowTitle) = _getActiveInfo_Win32()
            return _review_active_info(active_app_name, windowTitle)
    except:
        log.error('Unexpected error: %s' % sys.exc_info()[0])
        log.error('error line number: %s' % sys.exc_traceback.tb_lineno)
    return 'Unknown', 'Unknown'