Skip to content

FlaUI for Python

The complete FlaUI Windows UI Automation API — made Pythonic, typed, and batteries-included.

FlaUI Logo

PyPI version Python versions License GitHub stars

Automate any Windows application — WinForms, WPF, Win32, or Store apps — from Python with a clean, fully typed API that maps 1:1 to the battle-tested FlaUI C# library. No driver binaries to manage, no framework lock-in.

Get started API Reference Why FlaUI for Python?

Installation

FlaUI for Python targets Python 3.10–3.14 on Windows (the bundled FlaUI DLLs require the Windows UI Automation stack). All C# dependencies ship inside the wheel — there are no external drivers to install.

pip install flaui-uiautomation-wrapper

uv add flaui-uiautomation-wrapper

Trying a beta

We publish 1.0.0bN betas on the road to v1.0. Pre-releases are not installed by default — opt in explicitly:

pip install --pre --upgrade flaui-uiautomation-wrapper
# or pin an exact beta for reproducibility
pip install flaui-uiautomation-wrapper==1.0.0b1

uv pip install --prerelease=allow flaui-uiautomation-wrapper

See Road to v1.0 for the beta-soak plan and how to give feedback.

Get Started

Why the C# examples?

Upstream FlaUI has limited written documentation, so throughout these docs we pair each Python snippet with the equivalent C# code for reference. If you have seen a pattern in the original C# library, the side-by-side tabs make it easy to map it onto the Python API.

# Standard initialization
from flaui.lib.pythonnet_bridge import setup_pythonnet_bridge
setup_pythonnet_bridge()

from flaui.modules.automation import Automation
from flaui.lib.enums import UIAutomationTypes

automation = Automation(UIAutomationTypes.UIA3)
main_window = automation.application.launch("notepad.exe").get_main_window(automation)
main_window.find_first_by_x_path("//Button[@Name='OK']").as_button().invoke()

using FlaUI.UIA3;
using FlaUI.Core;

var automation = new UIA3Automation();
var app = Application.Launch("notepad.exe");
var mainWindow = app.GetMainWindow(automation);
mainWindow.FindFirstByXPath("//Button[@Name='OK']").AsButton().Invoke();

Why FlaUI for Python?

  • Native UI Automation

    Built on Microsoft's UI Automation (UIA) so you can inspect and drive any Windows application — WinForms, WPF, Win32, and Store apps alike.

  • Modern & Typed

    Every element, pattern, and coordinate is backed by Pydantic — giving you autocompletion, IDE intellisense, and validation before calls cross the interop boundary.

  • Batteries Included

    Zero-configuration setup. All FlaUI DLLs are bundled in the wheel — no driver binaries or external runtimes to manage.

  • Dual-Backend Support

    Switch seamlessly between UIA3 (COM-based, for modern apps) and UIA2 (managed, for legacy apps) with a single argument.

  • Advanced Element Search

    Find elements by Accessibility ID, Name, XPath, or arbitrary ConditionFactory logic — plus a full set of UIA patterns (Toggle, Select, Expand, Scroll, …).

  • Resilient & Debuggable

    Built-in Retry, dynamic timeouts, and input waiting keep tests stable; on-screen overlays, capture, and video recording make failures easy to diagnose.

Works with any test framework

No lock-in to a single runner. Use FlaUI for Python with pytest, unittest, Robot Framework, Behave, TestPlan, or your own harness — see the Examples.

Bundled Library Versions

FlaUI Binary Versions

Library Version Framework Dependency License
Core 5.0 .Net Framework 4.8 System.CodeDom.dll MIT
UIA3 5.0 .Net Framework 4.8 System.CodeDom.dll MIT
UIA2 5.0 .Net Framework 4.8 Interop.UIAutomationClient.dll, System.CodeDom.dll MIT

Inspirations & Credits

  • FlaUI: The core logic and test applications are derived from the upstream C# project.
  • robotframework-flaui (GDATA): The prior-art Python integration for FlaUI that influenced this project's direction.
  • Python.NET: The interop bridge that makes calling FlaUI from Python possible.
  • Playwright / pytest-playwright and FlaUIRecorder: Inspirations for the planned recorder and pytest tooling.
  • Community: Special thanks to the contributors of FlaUI and the Python.NET team.

Next Steps

  • Basics: Learn the core workflow: Initialize → Launch → Find → Interact.
  • Advanced Concepts: Master XPath, ConditionFactory, and Caching.
  • API Reference: Explore the full method documentation for every control.
  • Troubleshooting: Resolve common setup and finding issues.
  • Road to v1.0: See how the project gets to a stable v1.0.0, how to test betas, and how docs are versioned.