13 Advanced Python Scripts for Everyday Tasks

Every day developers encounter programming challenges that go beyond basic Python syntax; this guide shares thirteen advanced Python scripts that serve as handy tools for a variety of projects.

1. Speed Test with Python

This script uses the speedtest or pyspeedtest modules to measure internet download and upload speeds.

# pip install pyspeedtest
# pip install speedtest
# pip install speedtest-cli
# method 1
import speedtest
speedTest = speedtest.Speedtest()
print(speedTest.get_best_server())
print(speedTest.download())
print(speedTest.upload())
# Method 2
import pyspeedtest
st = pyspeedtest.SpeedTest()
st.ping()
st.download()
st.upload()

2. Google Search Redirection URLs

Extract redirected URLs from Google using the googlesearch module.

# pip install google
from googlesearch import search
query = "Medium.com"
for url in search(query):
    print(url)

3. Web Bot Automation

Automate a web browser with Selenium to perform a Google search.

# pip install selenium
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
bot = webdriver.Chrome("chromedriver.exe")
bot.get('http://www.google.com')
search = bot.find_element_by_name('q')
search.send_keys("@codedev101")
search.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)
time.sleep(5)
bot.quit()

4. Retrieve Song Lyrics

Fetch lyrics using the LyricsGenius API after obtaining a free API key.

# pip install lyricsgenius
import lyricsgenius
api_key = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
genius = lyricsgenius.Genius(api_key)
artist = genius.search_artist("Pop Smoke", max_songs=5, sort="title")
song = artist.song("100k On a Coupe")
print(song.lyrics)

5. Get Photo EXIF Data

Two methods are provided to extract EXIF metadata from images using Pillow or ExifRead.

# Get Exif of Photo
# Method 1
# pip install pillow
import PIL.Image
import PIL.ExifTags
img = PIL.Image.open("Img.jpg")
exif_data = {PIL.ExifTags.TAGS[i]: j for i, j in img._getexif().items() if i in PIL.ExifTags.TAGS}
print(exif_data)
# Method 2
# pip install ExifRead
import exifread
filename = open(path_name, 'rb')
tags = exifread.process_file(filename)
print(tags)

6. OCR Text Extraction

Convert scanned images to text using Tesseract OCR via the pytesseract library.

# pip install pytesseract
import pytesseract
from PIL import Image
pytesseract.pytesseract.tesseract_cmd = r'C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR\tesseract.exe'

t = Image.open("img.png")
text = pytesseract.image_to_string(t, config='')
print(text)

7. Image Cartonize

Transform a photo into a cartoon‑style image using OpenCV.

# pip install opencv-python
import cv2

img = cv2.imread('img.jpg')
grayimg = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
grayimg = cv2.medianBlur(grayimg, 5)

edges = cv2.Laplacian(grayimg , cv2.CV_8U, ksize=5)
r, mask = cv2.threshold(edges, 100, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY_INV)
img2 = cv2.bitwise_and(img, img, mask=mask)
img2 = cv2.medianBlur(img2, 5)

cv2.imwrite("cartooned.jpg", mask)

8. Empty Recycle Bin

Clear the Windows recycle bin using the winshell module.

# pip install winshell
import winshell
try:
    winshell.recycle_bin().empty(confirm=False, show_progress=False, sound=True)
    print("Recycle bin is emptied Now")
except:
    print("Recycle bin already empty")

9. Image Enhancement

Enhance photos with Pillow by adjusting color, contrast, brightness, and sharpness.

# pip install pillow
from PIL import Image, ImageFilter, ImageEnhance
im = Image.open('img.jpg')
# Choose your filter
en = ImageEnhance.Color(im)
en = ImageEnhance.Contrast(im)
en = ImageEnhance.Brightness(im)
en = ImageEnhance.Sharpness(im)
en.enhance(1.5).show("enhanced")

10. Get Windows Version

Retrieve the full Windows operating system version using the wmi library.

# Window Version
import wmi
data = wmi.WMI()
for os_name in data.Win32_OperatingSystem():
    print(os_name.Caption)
# Microsoft Windows 11 Home

11. PDF to Images

Convert each page of a PDF file to PNG images with PyMuPDF (fitz).

# PDF to Images
import fitz
pdf = 'sample_pdf.pdf'
doc = fitz.open(pdf)
for page in doc:
    pix = page.getPixmap(alpha=False)
    pix.writePNG('page-%i.png' % page.number)

12. Hex to RGB Conversion

Simple function to convert a hexadecimal color string to an RGB tuple.

# Conversion: Hex to RGB
def Hex_to_Rgb(hex):
    h = hex.lstrip('#')
    return tuple(int(h[i:i+2], 16) for i in (0, 2, 4))
print(Hex_to_Rgb('#c96d9d'))  # (201, 109, 157)
print(Hex_to_Rgb('#fa0515'))  # (250, 5, 21)

13. Website Status Check

Check whether a website is reachable by examining its HTTP status code using either urllib or requests.

# pip install requests
# method 1
import urllib.request
from urllib.request import Request, urlopen
req = Request('https://medium.com/@pythonians', headers={'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0'})
webpage = urlopen(req).getcode()
print(webpage)  # 200
# method 2
import requests
r = requests.get("https://medium.com/@pythonians")
print(r.status_code)  # 200