How do I convert a password into asterisks while it is being entered?

Question

Is there a way in Python to convert characters as they are being entered by the user to asterisks, like it can be seen on many websites?

For example, if an email user was asked to sign in to their account, while typing in their password, it wouldn't appear as characters but rather as * after each individual stroke without any time lag.

If the actual password was KermitTheFrog, it would appear as ************* when typed in.

Answer 1

There is getpass(), a function which hides the user input.

import getpass

password = getpass.getpass()
print(password)

Answer 2

If you want a solution that works on Windows/macOS/Linux and on Python 2 & 3, you can install the pwinput module (formerly called stdiomask):

pip install pwinput

Unlike getpass.getpass() (which is in the Python Standard Library), the pwinput module can display *** mask characters as you type. It is also cross-platform, while getpass is Linux and macOS only.

Example usage:

>>> pwinput.pwinput()
Password: *********
'swordfish'
>>> pwinput.pwinput(mask='X') # Change the mask character.
Password: XXXXXXXXX
'swordfish'
>>> pwinput.pwinput(prompt='PW: ', mask='*') # Change the prompt.
PW: *********
'swordfish'
>>> pwinput.pwinput(mask='') # Don't display anything.
Password:
'swordfish'

Unfortunately this module, like Python's built-in getpass module, doesn't work in IDLE or Jupyter Notebook.

More details at https://pypi.org/project/pwinput/

Answer 3

If you're using Tkinter:

# For Python 2:
from Tkinter import Entry, Tk
# For Python 3
from tkinter import Entry, Tk

master = Tk()

Password = Entry(master, bd=5, width=20, show="*")
Password.pack()

master.mainloop()

In the shell, this is not possible. You can however write a function to store the entered text and report only a string of *'s when called. Kinda like this, which I did not write. I just Googled it.