How do I check the operating system in Python?

Question

I want to check the operating system (on the computer where the script runs).

I know I can use os.system('uname -o') in Linux, but it gives me a message in the console, and I want to write to a variable.

It will be okay if the script can tell if it is Mac, Windows or Linux. How can I check it?

• BoltClock: possible duplicate of How can I tell What OS I am running on from Python?
• TylerH: Possible duplicate of Python: What OS am I running on?

Answer 1

You can use sys.platform:

from sys import platform
if platform == "linux" or platform == "linux2":
 # linux
elif platform == "darwin":
 # OS X
elif platform == "win32":
 # Windows...

sys.platform has finer granularity than sys.name.

For the valid values, consult the documentation.

See also the answer to "What OS am I running on?"

• Michał Bentkowski: Note that in cygwin, it returns "cygwin" not "win32" as someone might expect.
• Tharindu Rusira: Thanks. What's the difference between linux and linux2 ?
• Mark Amery: Note that since Python 3.3, "linux2" is no longer a possible value of platform (see the linked docs for corroboration) and so if you only need to support Python 3.3 and later you can safely delete the ` or platform == "linux2"` clause from the first condition.
• ohailolcat: why is it win32 not win64?
• cowlinator: @ohailolcat , for backward compatibility. It will probably never change. See the original patch that defined it this way for more info: mail.python.org/pipermail/patches/2000-May/000648.html

Answer 2

If you want to know on which platform you are on out of "Linux", "Windows", or "Darwin" (Mac), without more precision, you should use:

>>> import platform
>>> platform.system()
'Linux' # or 'Windows'/'Darwin'

The platform.system function uses uname internally.

• Brandon Benefield: I like this solution but I want to point out that from the docs it states that it will return Linux, Windows, Java or an empty string.devdocs.io/python~3.7/library/platform#platform.system
• Laurent LAPORTE: @BrandonBenefield, the enumeration is an example of possible values. On Apple devices, it returns "Darwin".
• Shayan: "The platform.system function uses uname internally." that's for Linux, what about Windows?
• Vladimir Vilimaitis: @Shayan For Windows, it basically is a formatter to sys.platform

Answer 3

You can get a pretty coarse idea of the OS you're using by checking sys.platform.

Once you have that information you can use it to determine if calling something like os.uname() is appropriate to gather more specific information. You could also use something like Python System Information on unix-like OSes, or pywin32 for Windows.

There's also psutil if you want to do more in-depth inspection without wanting to care about the OS.

• kristianp: os.uname() returns an error on windows: >>> os.uname() Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> AttributeError: module 'os' has no attribute 'uname'. Did you mean: 'name'?

Answer 4

More detailed information are available in the platform module.

• matth: Does the platform module have any advantage over sys.platform? When would I want to use which approach?
• Sven Marnach: @matth: You get more detailed, structured information from the platform module. Just click the link for documentation.

Answer 5

You can use sys.platform.

Answer 6

I stumbled across this for all Kivy developers kivy.utils:

from kivy.utils import platform
if platform == 'linux':
 do_linux_things()