detecting idle time using python

Question

How do I detect if the system is idle on Windows using Python (i.e. no keyboard or mouse activity). This has already been asked before, but there doesn\'t seem to be a

Answer 1

@FogleBird's answer is pretty cool and working, but in a hurry i wasn't sure how it works, so a little test example here. A thread is starting, looking for last idle time every 10 seconds. If any movement is made within this time window, it will be printed out.

from ctypes import Structure, windll, c_uint, sizeof, byref
import threading

//Print out every n seconds the idle time, when moving mouse, this should be < 10
def printit():
  threading.Timer(10.0, printit).start()
  print get_idle_duration()



class LASTINPUTINFO(Structure):
    _fields_ = [
        ('cbSize', c_uint),
        ('dwTime', c_uint),
    ]

def get_idle_duration():
    lastInputInfo = LASTINPUTINFO()
    lastInputInfo.cbSize = sizeof(lastInputInfo)
    windll.user32.GetLastInputInfo(byref(lastInputInfo))
    millis = windll.kernel32.GetTickCount() - lastInputInfo.dwTime
    return millis / 1000.0

printit()