How to remove/exclude modules and files from pyInstaller?

Question

I'm trying to shrink the size of my python exe file, I've been looking around but I can't seem to find a good answer for removing extra modules. At the moment, I'm discovering that it's deleting modules I need instead of the ones I'm telling it to. The documentation is rather unhelpful and neither are examples I've found so far.

My spec file:

a = Analysis(['D:\\<path>\\<scriptName>.py'],
         pathex=['c:\\bin\\pyinstaller-2.0'],
         hiddenimports=[],
         hookspath=None,
         )

pyz = PYZ(a.pure)
exe = EXE(pyz,
      a.zipfiles,
      a.scripts,
      a.binaries,
      a.datas + [('data/Sounds/Cycle.wav', 'D:\\<path>\\data\\Sounds\\Cycle.wav','DATA'),
       ('data/Sounds/Hold.wav', 'D:\\<path>\\data\\Sounds\\Hold.wav','DATA'),
       ('data/Sounds/Timer.wav', 'D:\\<path>\\data\\Sounds\\Timer.wav','DATA'),
       ('data/Sounds/Warn.wav', 'D:\\<path>\\data\\Sounds\\Warn.wav','DATA'),
       ],
      name=os.path.join('dist', 'timer.exe'),
      debug=False,
      strip=False,
      upx=False,
      icon=r"D:\<path>\Icon.ico",
      console=True )

Now, I want to start excluding things, but there doesn't seem to be a very explanation of how to exclude things.

These are things I had excluded when using py2exe:

'win32', 'unittest', _ssl, 'python25.dll', 'w9xpopen.exe', 'wx'
'python25.dll', 'API*', 'KERNALBASE.dll', 'DEVOBJ.dll','CRMGR32.dll',
'POWERPROF.dll', 'msvcm90.dll', 'msvcp90.dll', 'msvcr90.dll'

Though if I add any of these into the a.binaries as

a.binaries -[('wx')],

it deletes the PyQt4.dll files instead. Same holds true for the others. I do not follow that logic. I would think, at the very least, if it couldn't find them in the first place it would just skip over them instead of deleting other things.

py2exe makes me a 26mb files + three files (exe, library.zip, and w9xpopen.exe) pyInstaller makes me an 11mb file, and one file.

I feel I can make it smaller, but this excludes thing is confusing me. It straight up ignores the msv dll files and puts them in anyway.

Using Python 2.7, PyQt4 4.9.x

Answer 1

I would remove some like this:

a.binaries = a.binaries - TOC([
  ('sqlite3.dll', None, None),
  ('tcl85.dll', None, None),
  ('tk85.dll', None, None),
  ('_sqlite3', None, None),
  ('_ssl', None, None),
  ('_tkinter', None, None)
])

Answer 2

The solution that worked for me was:

excluded_binaries = [
        'VCRUNTIME140.dll',
        'msvcp140.dll',
        'mfc140u.dll']
a.binaries = TOC([x for x in a.binaries if x[0] not in excluded_binaries])

Answer 3

An easy way to exclude is to use the Analysis class, and add your modules to the excludes field, like stated here https://pyinstaller.readthedocs.io/en/stable/spec-files.html#spec-file-operation

What I use is something like this:

Analysis(..., excludes=['_gtkagg', '_tkagg', 'bsddb', 'curses', 'pywin.debugger', 'pywin.debugger.dbgcon', 'pywin.dialogs', 'tcl', 'Tkconstants', 'Tkinter'], ..)