PyInstaller very big file size

Question

I've made simple code editor using wxPython. File size (python files) is 1.3 KB. But when I create executable using PyInstaller, I get 30 MB file! Is there a way to decrease file size? Btw, I am not importing whole wx library, only components I need (ex from wx import Frame).

Using Linux, Fedora 18 64bit.

Answer 1

wxPython is a big library so when you create an executable, they tend to end up being between 20 and 30 MB. Also note that Python itself is kind of bulky because Python is an interpreted language. So you are also including the Python interpreter when you create the exe.

With py2exe, I have gotten the executable below 10 MB, but it's a pain and doesn't work for all projects. It really depends on what else you are using. You can read about my adventures with py2exe here.

The other way to get it smaller is to use a compression program. That sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

You can also tell most of these binary creation tools to exclude items. You can try that too.

Answer 2

I shipped a fairly simple wxPython app and it ended up being ~9.8MB.

If you utilize the ArchiveViewer.py script that's part of PyInstaller you can determine what's taking up so much space.

This was with python 2.7.5, without UPX, and excluding these modules:

excludesPassedToAnalysis = ['ssl',
 '_ssl',
 # coverage uses _socket. :(
 #'_socket',
 'select',
 'pywin',
 'unittest',
 'win32ui',
 'bz2',
 'doctest',
 'os2emxpath',
 'servicemanager',
 'xml.parsers.expat',
 'sitecustomize',
 'tarflie',
 'email',
 'urllib',
 'urllib2',
 # This exclude isn't optional in order to get pubsub working
 # correctly in wxPython 2.9.3 or later.
 'wx.lib.pubsub.autosetuppubsubv1']

# These are removed from a.pure after the Analysis object is created.
excludeEncodings = \
['encodings.base_64_codec',
 'encodings.big5',
 'encodings.big5hkscs',
 'encodings.bz2_codec',
 'encodings.cp037',
 'encodings.cp1006',
 'encodings.cp1026',
 'encodings.cp1140',
 'encodings.cp1258',
 'encodings.cp424',
 'encodings.cp437',
 'encodings.cp500',
 'encodings.cp720',
 'encodings.cp737',
 'encodings.cp775',
 'encodings.cp850',
 'encodings.cp852',
 'encodings.cp855',
 'encodings.cp856',
 'encodings.cp857',
 'encodings.cp858',
 'encodings.cp860',
 'encodings.cp861',
 'encodings.cp862',
 'encodings.cp863',
 'encodings.cp864',
 'encodings.cp865',
 'encodings.cp866',
 'encodings.cp869',
 'encodings.cp874',
 'encodings.cp875',
 'encodings.cp932',
 'encodings.cp949',
 'encodings.cp950',
 'encodings.euc_jis_2004',
 'encodings.euc_jisx0213',
 'encodings.euc_jp',
 'encodings.euc_kr',
 'encodings.gb18030',
 'encodings.gb2312',
 'encodings.gbk',
 'encodings.hex_codec',
 'encodings.hp_roman8',
 'encodings.hz',
 'encodings.iso2022_jp',
 'encodings.iso2022_jp_1',
 'encodings.iso2022_jp_2',
 'encodings.iso2022_jp_2004',
 'encodings.iso2022_jp_3',
 'encodings.iso2022_jp_ext',
 'encodings.iso2022_kr',
 'encodings.iso8859_10',
 'encodings.iso8859_11',
 'encodings.iso8859_13',
 'encodings.iso8859_14',
 'encodings.iso8859_15',
 'encodings.iso8859_16',
 'encodings.iso8859_2',
 'encodings.iso8859_3',
 'encodings.iso8859_4',
 'encodings.iso8859_5',
 'encodings.iso8859_6',
 'encodings.iso8859_7',
 'encodings.iso8859_8',
 'encodings.iso8859_9',
 'encodings.johab',
 'encodings.koi8_r',
 'encodings.koi8_u',
 'encodings.mac_arabic',
 'encodings.mac_centeuro',
 'encodings.mac_croatian',
 'encodings.mac_cyrillic',
 'encodings.mac_farsi',
 'encodings.mac_greek',
 'encodings.mac_iceland',
 'encodings.mac_latin2',
 'encodings.mac_roman',
 'encodings.mac_romanian',
 'encodings.mac_turkish',
 'encodings.mbcs',
 'encodings.palmos',
 'encodings.ptcp154',
 'encodings.quopri_codec',
 'encodings.raw_unicode_escape',
 'encodings.rot_13',
 'encodings.shift_jis',
 'encodings.shift_jis_2004',
 'encodings.shift_jisx0213',
 'encodings.string_escape',
 'encodings.tis_620',
 'encodings.undefined',
 'encodings.utf_32',
 'encodings.utf_32_be',
 'encodings.utf_32_le',
 'encodings.utf_7',
 'encodings.uu_codec',
 'encodings.zlib_codec',]