Reading the target of a .lnk file in Python?

Create a shortcut using Python (via WSH)

import sys
import win32com.client 

shell = win32com.client.Dispatch("WScript.Shell")
shortcut = shell.CreateShortCut("t:\\test.lnk")
shortcut.Targetpath = "t:\\ftemp"
shortcut.save()

Read the Target of a Shortcut using Python (via WSH)

import sys
import win32com.client 

shell = win32com.client.Dispatch("WScript.Shell")
shortcut = shell.CreateShortCut("t:\\test.lnk")
print(shortcut.Targetpath)

Alternatively, you could try using SHGetFolderPath(). The following code might work, but I'm not on a Windows machine right now so I can't test it.

import ctypes

shell32 = ctypes.windll.shell32

# allocate MAX_PATH bytes in buffer
video_folder_path = ctypes.create_string_buffer(260)

# 0xE is CSIDL_MYVIDEO
# 0 is SHGFP_TYPE_CURRENT
# If you want a Unicode path, use SHGetFolderPathW instead
if shell32.SHGetFolderPathA(None, 0xE, None, 0, video_folder_path) >= 0:
    # success, video_folder_path now contains the correct path
else:
    # error

Basically call the Windows API directly. Here is a good example found after Googling:

import os, sys
import pythoncom
from win32com.shell import shell, shellcon

shortcut = pythoncom.CoCreateInstance (
  shell.CLSID_ShellLink,
  None,
  pythoncom.CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER,
  shell.IID_IShellLink
)
desktop_path = shell.SHGetFolderPath (0, shellcon.CSIDL_DESKTOP, 0, 0)
shortcut_path = os.path.join (desktop_path, "python.lnk")
persist_file = shortcut.QueryInterface (pythoncom.IID_IPersistFile)
persist_file.Load (shortcut_path)

shortcut.SetDescription ("Updated Python %s" % sys.version)
mydocs_path = shell.SHGetFolderPath (0, shellcon.CSIDL_PERSONAL, 0, 0)
shortcut.SetWorkingDirectory (mydocs_path)

persist_file.Save (shortcut_path, 0)

This is from http://timgolden.me.uk/python/win32_how_do_i/create-a-shortcut.html.

You can search for "python ishelllink" for other examples.

Also, the API reference helps too: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb774950(VS.85).aspx

I didn't really like any of the answers available because I didn't want to keep importing more and more libraries and the 'shell' option was spotty on my test machines. I opted for reading the ".lnk" in and then using a regular expression to read out the path. For my purposes, I am looking for pdf files that were recently opened and then reading the content of those files:

# Example file path to the shortcut
shortcut = "shortcutFileName.lnk"

# Open the lnk file using the ISO-8859-1 encoder to avoid errors for special characters
lnkFile = open(shortcut, 'r', encoding = "ISO-8859-1")

# Use a regular expression to parse out the pdf file on C:\
filePath = re.findall("C:.*?pdf", lnkFile.read(), flags=re.DOTALL)

# Close File
lnkFile.close()

# Read the pdf at the lnk Target
pdfFile = open(tmpFilePath[0], 'rb')

Comments:

Obviously this works for pdf but needs to specify other file extensions accordingly.

It's easy as opening ".exe" file. Here also, we are going to use the os module for this. You just have to create a shortcut .lnk and store it in any folder of your choice. Then, in any Python file, first import the os module (already installed, just import). Then, use a variable, say path, and assign it a string value containing the location of your .lnk file. Just create a shortcut of your desired application. At last, we will use os.startfile() to open our shortcut.

Points to remember:

1. The location should be within double inverted commas.
2. Most important, open Properties. Then, under that, open "Details". There, you can get the exact name of your shortcut. Please write that name with ".lnk" at last.

Now, you have completed the procedure. I hope it helps you. For additional assistance, I am leaving my code for this at the bottom.

import os

path = "C:\\Users\\hello\\OneDrive\\Desktop\\Shortcuts\\OneNote for Windows 10.lnk"

os.startfile(path)

In my code, I used path as variable and I had created a shortcut for OneNote. In path, I defined the location of OneNote's shortcut. So when I use os.startfile(path), the os module is going to open my shortcut file defined in variable path.

this job is possible without any modules, doing this will return a b string having the destination of the shortcut file. Basically what you do is you open the file in read binary mode (rb mode). This is the code to accomplish this task:

with open('programs.lnk - Copy','rb') as f:
    destination=f.read()

i am currently using python 3.9.2, in case you face problems with this, just tell me and i will try to fix it.