How to Run Python Scripts Automatically From Windows Batch Files!

hello and welcome back to the channel and in today's video I am going to show you how to open python files from Windows batch files including making python programs auto run when you start up Windows [Music] initially so I am super excited to bring you guys this tutorial this is one of the most requested videos I've ever done and the question keeps coming up if I have a python script and I want to automatically start up when I start up Windows and I don't want to turn Python scripts into executables what is the best way to do that because python is not a compiled language it's not a c-based language rather than turning your files into executables it's actually just easiest to call python.exe and then a specific. py file from within a Windows batch file so what we're going to look at today is how to call a python script from a Windows batch file it doesn't really matter what python script you use but for my example I'm going to use a python uh script that I made previously on the channel this is a beat maker which uh is basically an electronic drum kit where you can make your own BackBeat and uh it's it's pretty fun um this was actually a big video for the channel it got featured on free code Camp um so this was a really fun video for me and that's why I chose this project to use but also because it's kind of complicated it's like over 200 lines of code it calls external files um and I want to show you how easy it is to call this from within a batch file so what I'm going to do is uh I'm using an IDE here called jet or uh pycharm by the company jet brains doesn't really matter what IDE you develop your python code in as long as you have uh python installed and you have a piy file on your computer then you can develop in whatever IDE you want the thing I like about uh py arm is when you run a file when you run a py file it gives you this path in the bottom which shows your file path to run python.exe and then it shows you the file path to thep file that you're running this just copying and pasting it into a batch file is actually like 70% of the work required so that's what I'm going to do um but if you don't have this all you have to do is whatever IDE you're developing yourp file in you need to find the file path that it lives in and then you need to find somewhere that python.exe lives on your computer the reality is when you install python there's probably a folder like app data or program files that has python installed but whatever IDE you're developing in If it creates virtual environments for your projects it would also have python installed in it so we're going to copy this file path and we're just going to open up notepad and we are going to open an empty text file and we're going to paste those file paths in okay so I'm going to take the first half of that up to python.exe I'm going to put in one set of quotes So I have my C users blah BL blah something that will call python.exe and then in a second set of quotes I'm going to put the file path for the file that I actually want to run then really the only two things that are specifically going to make this a uh batch file a Windows batch file is you want to tell Echo off and then at the end you want to say pause so it doesn't just blast through this line of code and then immediately close the batch file all right and now we have a text that's this simple and we just hit file and then save as and I'm going to put it on the desktop and I'm going to save it on my desktop and I'm going to call it BeatMaker dobat and this is the important part that bat even though it's a text document when you dobat you're telling windows that it's a batch file so if I hit save and then I did already have it on there so I'll replace it but if I hit save and I didn't have it it would just put it on there I'm going to close py charm so you guys can see that it's not on there and now I have this file with two little gears on it on my desktop and it says beat maker so I'm going to go ahead and double click that and it says hello from py game because that's what happens when you boot up a python file with pame in it and you can see it running and this is immediately functional okay so I have the high hat the snare the kicks and I'm just going to say this is one of like my favorite python files I've ever made um but you can see there just by uh putting the python script inside a batch file I've basically turned it into an executable um which is super easy so the last thing I want to show is the easiest way to put that batch file into something that's going to automatically run when you start up your computer and right before we get to that I want to thank the SP onor of today's video PCB way PCB way manufactures highquality printed circuit board and printed circuit board assemblies for hobbyists and makers their engineering staff reviews every order to make sure it's accurate and their sales and service team is incredibly responsive and helpful they have all sorts of cool customization options including changing the color of the boards themselves and the text that you print onto your boards in addition they have terrific 3D printing and metal CNC prototyping Services their pricing is super fair and their turnaround time is great so thank you to PCB way for sponsoring the video and be sure to check them out in the link in the description below the video now back to the tutorial something that's going to automatically run when you start up your computer and to do this I do windows r i open this run menu and then type shell colon startup this is just the easiest way to get to the folder that runs when you start your computer up okay so you hit enter on that and it brings you to a folder and then all you have to do it's this easy just contrl C on the the batch file that you just made and drop it into startup okay now the only way I can really show you this working is me taking a video with my phone while I restart the computer so the video editing might clip a little bit now so that I can show you this uh booting up on auto startup okay so I'm signed out I'm going to uh put my pin in and there's our batch file running our script and it goes straight to the program and we can start using it immediately so just like that we've created a file that can run on Startup okay you guys so that is going to do it for today's video I hope you found this useful I hope it showed you exactly what you're looking for when you clicked on this video be sure to drop a comment letting me know what you want to see more of on the channel and if you had any questions about what you saw here today consider leaving a like on the video subscribing to the channel it helps me out a ton if you love the content I'm making on the channel consider becoming a Super supporter of L Master Tech by checking out my patreon link in the comments below as well thank you so much for watching good luck with your projects and we'll see you next time thanks bye