Application not picking up .css file (flask/python)

Question

You need to have a 'static' folder setup (for css/js files) unless you specifically override it during Flask initialization. I am assuming you did not override it.

Your directory structure for css should be like:

/app
    - app_runner.py
    /services
        - app.py 
    /templates
        - mainpage.html
    /static
        /styles
            - mainpage.css

Notice that your /styles directory should be under /static

Then, do this

<link rel= "stylesheet" type= "text/css" href= "{{ url_for('static',filename='styles/mainpage.css') }}">

Flask will now look for the css file under static/styles/mainpage.css

In jinja2 templates (which flask uses), use

href="{{ url_for('static', filename='mainpage.css')}}"

The static files are usually in the static folder, though, unless configured otherwise.

Still having problems after following the solution provided by codegeek:
<link rel= "stylesheet" type= "text/css" href= "{{ url_for('static',filename='styles/mainpage.css') }}"> ?

In Google Chrome pressing the reload button (F5) will not reload the static files. If you have followed the accepted solution but still don't see the changes you have made to CSS, then press ctrl + shift + R to ignore cached files and reload the static files.

In Firefox pressing the reload button appears to reload the static files.

In Edge pressing the refresh button does not reload the static file. Pressing ctrl + shift + R is supposed to ignore cached files and reload the static files. However this does not work on my computer.

I have read multiple threads and none of them fixed the issue that people are describing and I have experienced too.

I have even tried to move away from conda and use pip, to upgrade to python 3.7, i have tried all coding proposed and none of them fixed.

And here is why (the problem):

by default python/flask search the static and the template in a folder structure like:

/Users/username/folder_one/folder_two/ProjectName/src/app_name/<static>
 and 
/Users/username/folder_one/folder_two/ProjectName/src/app_name/<template>

you can verify by yourself using the debugger on Pycharm (or anything else) and check the values on the app (app = Flask(name)) and search for teamplate_folder and static_folder

in order to fix this, you have to specify the values when creating the app something like this:

TEMPLATE_DIR = os.path.abspath('../templates')
STATIC_DIR = os.path.abspath('../static')

# app = Flask(__name__) # to make the app run without any
app = Flask(__name__, template_folder=TEMPLATE_DIR, static_folder=STATIC_DIR)

the path TEMPLATE_DIR and STATIC_DIR depend on where the file app is located. in my case, see the picture, it was located within a folder under src.

you can change the template and static folders as you wish and register on the app = Flask...

In truth, I have started experiencing the problem when messing around with folder and at times worked at times not. this fixes the problem once and for all

the html code looks like this:

<link href="{{ url_for('static', filename='libraries/css/bootstrap.css') }}" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" >

This the code

Here the structure of the folders