- 1 year ago
Is there a way to get the URL of the active Windows explorer using python
In Python, you can retrieve the URL of the active Windows Explorer window by using the ctypes
module to access Windows APIs. Specifically, you can utilize the GetForegroundWindow
and GetWindowText
functions from the user32
library to retrieve the active window's handle and title.
Here's an example:
pythonimport ctypes
def get_active_explorer_url():
# Retrieve the handle of the active window
handle = ctypes.windll.user32.GetForegroundWindow()
# Get the length of the window title
length = ctypes.windll.user32.GetWindowTextLengthW(handle) + 1
# Create a buffer to hold the window title
buffer = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(length)
# Retrieve the window title
ctypes.windll.user32.GetWindowTextW(handle, buffer, length)
# Convert the buffer to a string
title = buffer.value
# Check if the window title contains "Windows Explorer"
if "Windows Explorer" in title:
# Extract the URL from the window title
url = title.split(" - ")[-1]
return url
return None
# Get the URL of the active Windows Explorer window
active_explorer_url = get_active_explorer_url()
if active_explorer_url:
print(f"Active Explorer URL: {active_explorer_url}")
else:
print("No active Explorer window found.")
In the example above, the get_active_explorer_url
function uses the GetForegroundWindow
function to retrieve the handle of the active window. It then calls the GetWindowTextW
function to retrieve the window title. If the window title contains "Windows Explorer," it extracts the URL from the title by splitting it and returns the URL.
Please note that this approach relies on the window title format of Windows Explorer windows, and it may not work if the format changes in future Windows versions. Additionally, this method assumes that the URL is present in the window title, which is not always the case.
Make sure to have the necessary privileges to access the Windows APIs, and keep in mind that this solution is specific to the Windows operating system.