The Screen and Mouse Position¶

Locations on your screen are referred to by X and Y Cartesian coordinates. The X coordinate starts at 0 on the left side and increases going right. Unlike in mathematics, the Y coordinate starts at 0 on the top and increases going down.

0,0Xincreases-->+---------------------------+||Yincreases||||1920x1080screen||||V||||+---------------------------+1919,1079

The pixel at the top-left corner is at coordinates 0, 0. If your screen’s resolution is 1920 x 1080, the pixel in the lower right corner will be 1919, 1079 (since the coordinates begin at 0, not 1).

The screen resolution size is returned by thesize() function as a tuple of two integers. The current X and Y coordinates of the mouse cursor are returned by theposition() function.

For example:

>>>pyautogui.size()(1920, 1080)>>>pyautogui.position()(187, 567)

Here is a short Python 3 program that will constantly print out the position of the mouse cursor:

#! python3importpyautogui,sysprint('Press Ctrl-C to quit.')try:whileTrue:x,y=pyautogui.position()positionStr='X: '+str(x).rjust(4)+' Y: '+str(y).rjust(4)print(positionStr,end='')print('\b'*len(positionStr),end='',flush=True)exceptKeyboardInterrupt:print('\n')

Here is the Python 2 version:

#! pythonimportpyautogui,sysprint('Press Ctrl-C to quit.')try:whileTrue:x,y=pyautogui.position()positionStr='X: '+str(x).rjust(4)+' Y: '+str(y).rjust(4)printpositionStr,print'\b'*(len(positionStr)+2),sys.stdout.flush()exceptKeyboardInterrupt:print'\n'

To check if XY coordinates are on the screen, pass them (either as two integer arguments or a single tuple/list arguments with two integers) to theonScreen() function, which will returnTrue if they are within the screen’s boundaries andFalse if not. For example:

>>>pyautogui.onScreen(0,0)True>>>pyautogui.onScreen(0,-1)False>>>pyautogui.onScreen(0,99999999)False>>>pyautogui.size()(1920, 1080)>>>pyautogui.onScreen(1920,1080)False>>>pyautogui.onScreen(1919,1079)True

Mouse Movement¶

ThemoveTo() function will move the mouse cursor to the X and Y integer coordinates you pass it. TheNone value can be passed for a coordinate to mean “the current mouse cursor position”. For example:

>>>pyautogui.moveTo(100,200)# moves mouse to X of 100, Y of 200.>>>pyautogui.moveTo(None,500)# moves mouse to X of 100, Y of 500.>>>pyautogui.moveTo(600,None)# moves mouse to X of 600, Y of 500.

Normally the mouse cursor will instantly move to the new coordinates. If you want the mouse to gradually move to the new location, pass a third argument for the duration (in seconds) the movement should take. For example:

>>>pyautogui.moveTo(100,200,2)# moves mouse to X of 100, Y of 200 over 2 seconds

(If the duration is less thanpyautogui.MINIMUM_DURATION the movement will be instant. By default,pyautogui.MINIMUM_DURATION is 0.1.)

If you want to move the mouse cursor over a few pixelsrelative to its current position, use themove() function. This function has similar parameters asmoveTo(). For example:

>>>pyautogui.moveTo(100,200)# moves mouse to X of 100, Y of 200.>>>pyautogui.move(0,50)# move the mouse down 50 pixels.>>>pyautogui.move(-30,0)# move the mouse left 30 pixels.>>>pyautogui.move(-30,None)# move the mouse left 30 pixels.

Mouse Drags¶

PyAutoGUI’sdragTo() anddrag() functions have similar parameters as themoveTo() andmove() functions. In addition, they have abutton keyword which can be set to'left','middle', and'right' for which mouse button to hold down while dragging. For example:

>>>pyautogui.dragTo(100,200,button='left')# drag mouse to X of 100, Y of 200 while holding down left mouse button>>>pyautogui.dragTo(300,400,2,button='left')# drag mouse to X of 300, Y of 400 over 2 seconds while holding down left mouse button>>>pyautogui.drag(30,0,2,button='right')# drag the mouse left 30 pixels over 2 seconds while holding down the right mouse button

Tween / Easing Functions¶

Tweening is an extra feature to make the mouse movements fancy. You can probably skip this section if you don’t care about this.

A tween or easing function dictates the progress of the mouse as it moves to its destination. Normally when moving the mouse over a duration of time, the mouse moves directly towards the destination in a straight line at a constant speed. This is known as alinear tween orlinear easing function.

PyAutoGUI has other tweening functions available in thepyautogui module. Thepyautogui.easeInQuad function can be passed for the 4th argument tomoveTo(),move(),dragTo(), anddrag() functions to have the mouse cursor start off moving slowly and then speeding up towards the destination. The total duration is still the same as the argument passed to the function. Thepyautogui.easeOutQuad is the reverse: the mouse cursor starts moving fast but slows down as it approaches the destination. Thepyautogui.easeOutElastic will overshoot the destination and “rubber band” back and forth until it settles at the destination.

For example:

>>>pyautogui.moveTo(100,100,2,pyautogui.easeInQuad)# start slow, end fast>>>pyautogui.moveTo(100,100,2,pyautogui.easeOutQuad)# start fast, end slow>>>pyautogui.moveTo(100,100,2,pyautogui.easeInOutQuad)# start and end fast, slow in middle>>>pyautogui.moveTo(100,100,2,pyautogui.easeInBounce)# bounce at the end>>>pyautogui.moveTo(100,100,2,pyautogui.easeInElastic)# rubber band at the end

These tweening functions are copied from Al Sweigart’s PyTweening module:https://pypi.python.org/pypi/PyTweeninghttps://github.com/asweigart/pytweening This module does not have to be installed to use the tweening functions.

If you want to create your own tweening function, define a function that takes a single float argument between0.0 (representing the start of the mouse travelling) and1.0 (representing the end of the mouse travelling) and returns a float value between0.0 and1.0.

Mouse Clicks¶

Theclick() function simulates a single, left-button mouse click at the mouse’s current position. A “click” is defined as pushing the button down and then releasing it up. For example:

>>>pyautogui.click()# click the mouse

To combine amoveTo() call before the click, pass integers for thex andy keyword argument:

>>>pyautogui.click(x=100,y=200)# move to 100, 200, then click the left mouse button.

To specify a different mouse button to click, pass'left','middle', or'right' for thebutton keyword argument:

>>>pyautogui.click(button='right')# right-click the mouse

To do multiple clicks, pass an integer to theclicks keyword argument. Optionally, you can pass a float or integer to theinterval keyword argument to specify the amount of pause between the clicks in seconds. For example:

>>>pyautogui.click(clicks=2)# double-click the left mouse button>>>pyautogui.click(clicks=2,interval=0.25)# double-click the left mouse button, but with a quarter second pause in between clicks>>>pyautogui.click(button='right',clicks=3,interval=0.25)## triple-click the right mouse button with a quarter second pause in between clicks

As a convenient shortcut, thedoubleClick() function will perform a double click of the left mouse button. It also has the optionalx,y,interval, andbutton keyword arguments. For example:

>>>pyautogui.doubleClick()# perform a left-button double click

There is also atripleClick() function with similar optional keyword arguments.

TherightClick() function has optionalx andy keyword arguments.

The mouseDown() and mouseUp() Functions¶

Mouse clicks and drags are composed of both pressing the mouse button down and releasing it back up. If you want to perform these actions separately, call themouseDown() andmouseUp() functions. They have the samex,y, andbutton. For example:

>>>pyautogui.mouseDown();pyautogui.mouseUp()# does the same thing as a left-button mouse click>>>pyautogui.mouseDown(button='right')# press the right button down>>>pyautogui.mouseUp(button='right',x=100,y=200)# move the mouse to 100, 200, then release the right button up.

Mouse Scrolling¶

The mouse scroll wheel can be simulated by calling thescroll() function and passing an integer number of “clicks” to scroll. The amount of scrolling in a “click” varies between platforms. Optionally, integers can be passed for the thex andy keyword arguments to move the mouse cursor before performing the scroll. For example:

>>>pyautogui.scroll(10)# scroll up 10 "clicks">>>pyautogui.scroll(-10)# scroll down 10 "clicks">>>pyautogui.scroll(10,x=100,y=100)# move mouse cursor to 100, 200, then scroll up 10 "clicks"

On OS X and Linux platforms, PyAutoGUI can also perform horizontal scrolling by calling the hscroll() function. For example:

>>>pyautogui.hscroll(10)# scroll right 10 "clicks">>>pyautogui.hscroll(-10)# scroll left 10 "clicks"

Thescroll() function is a wrapper forvscroll(), which performs vertical scrolling.