How to maximize a plt.show() window

Try plt.figure(figsize=(6*3.13,4*3.13)) to make the plot larger.

Pressing the f key (or ctrl+f in 1.2rc1) when focussed on a plot will fullscreen a plot window. Not quite maximising, but perhaps better.

Other than that, to actually maximize, you will need to use GUI Toolkit specific commands (if they exist for your specific backend).

HTH

Try using ‘Figure.set_size_inches’ method, with the extra keyword argument forward=True. According to the documentation, this should resize the figure window.

Whether that actually happens will depend on the operating system you are using.

This makes the window take up the full screen for me, under Ubuntu 12.04 with the TkAgg backend:

    mng = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
    mng.resize(*mng.window.maxsize())

With Qt backend (FigureManagerQT) proper command is:

figManager = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
figManager.window.showMaximized()

This should work (at least with TkAgg):

wm = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
wm.window.state('zoomed')

(adopted from the above and Using Tkinter, is there a way to get the usable screen size without visibly zooming a window?)

I get mng.frame.Maximize(True) AttributeError: FigureManagerTkAgg instance has no attribute 'frame' as well.

Then I looked through the attributes mng has, and I found this:

mng.window.showMaximized()

That worked for me.

So for people who have the same trouble, you may try this.

By the way, my Matplotlib version is 1.3.1.

I am on a Windows (WIN7), running Python 2.7.5 & Matplotlib 1.3.1.

I was able to maximize Figure windows for TkAgg, QT4Agg, and wxAgg using the following lines:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt

### for 'TkAgg' backend
plt.figure(1)
plt.switch_backend('TkAgg') #TkAgg (instead Qt4Agg)
print '#1 Backend:',plt.get_backend()
plt.plot([1,2,6,4])
mng = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
### works on Ubuntu??? >> did NOT working on windows
# mng.resize(*mng.window.maxsize())
mng.window.state('zoomed') #works fine on Windows!
plt.show() #close the figure to run the next section

### for 'wxAgg' backend
plt.figure(2)
plt.switch_backend('wxAgg')
print '#2 Backend:',plt.get_backend()
plt.plot([1,2,6,4])
mng = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
mng.frame.Maximize(True)
plt.show() #close the figure to run the next section

### for 'Qt4Agg' backend
plt.figure(3)
plt.switch_backend('QT4Agg') #default on my system
print '#3 Backend:',plt.get_backend()
plt.plot([1,2,6,4])
figManager = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
figManager.window.showMaximized()
plt.show()

if you want to maximize multiple figures you can use

for fig in figs:
    mng = fig.canvas.manager
    # ...

Hope this summary of the previous answers (and some additions) combined in a working example (at least for windows) helps.

For me nothing of the above worked. I use the Tk backend on Ubuntu 14.04 which contains matplotlib 1.3.1.

The following code creates a fullscreen plot window which is not the same as maximizing but it serves my purpose nicely:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
mng = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
mng.full_screen_toggle()
plt.show()

This doesn’t necessarily maximize your window, but it does resize your window in proportion to the size of the figure:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
F = gcf()
Size = F.get_size_inches()
F.set_size_inches(Size[0]*2, Size[1]*2, forward=True)#Set forward to True to resize window along with plot in figure.
plt.show() #or plt.imshow(z_array) if using an animation, where z_array is a matrix or numpy array

This might also help: http://matplotlib.1069221.n5.nabble.com/Resizing-figure-windows-td11424.html

The following may work with all the backends, but I tested it only on QT:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import time

plt.switch_backend('QT4Agg') #default on my system
print('Backend: {}'.format(plt.get_backend()))

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_axes([0,0, 1,1])
ax.axis([0,10, 0,10])
ax.plot(5, 5, 'ro')

mng = plt._pylab_helpers.Gcf.figs.get(fig.number, None)

mng.window.showMaximized() #maximize the figure
time.sleep(3)
mng.window.showMinimized() #minimize the figure
time.sleep(3)
mng.window.showNormal() #normal figure
time.sleep(3)
mng.window.hide() #hide the figure
time.sleep(3)
fig.show() #show the previously hidden figure

ax.plot(6,6, 'bo') #just to check that everything is ok
plt.show()

Ok so this is what worked for me. I did the whole showMaximize() option and it does resize your window in proportion to the size of the figure, but it does not expand and ‘fit’ the canvas. I solved this by:

mng = plt.get_current_fig_manager()                                         
mng.window.showMaximized()
plt.tight_layout()    
plt.savefig('Images/SAVES_PIC_AS_PDF.pdf') 

plt.show()

This is kind of hacky and probably not portable, only use it if you’re looking for quick and dirty. If I just set the figure much bigger than the screen, it takes exactly the whole screen.

fig = figure(figsize=(80, 60))

In fact, in Ubuntu 16.04 with Qt4Agg, it maximizes the window (not full-screen) if it’s bigger than the screen. (If you have two monitors, it just maximizes it on one of them).

In my versions (Python 3.6, Eclipse, Windows 7), snippets given above didn’t work, but with hints given by Eclipse/pydev (after typing: mng.), I found:

mng.full_screen_toggle()

It seems that using mng-commands is ok only for local development…

The one solution that worked on Win 10 flawlessly.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.plot(x_data, y_data)

mng = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
mng.window.state("zoomed")
plt.show()

My best effort so far, supporting different backends:

from platform import system
def plt_maximize():
    # See discussion: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12439588/how-to-maximize-a-plt-show-window-using-python
    backend = plt.get_backend()
    cfm = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
    if backend == "wxAgg":
        cfm.frame.Maximize(True)
    elif backend == "TkAgg":
        if system() == "Windows":
            cfm.window.state("zoomed")  # This is windows only
        else:
            cfm.resize(*cfm.window.maxsize())
    elif backend == "QT4Agg":
        cfm.window.showMaximized()
    elif callable(getattr(cfm, "full_screen_toggle", None)):
        if not getattr(cfm, "flag_is_max", None):
            cfm.full_screen_toggle()
            cfm.flag_is_max = True
    else:
        raise RuntimeError("plt_maximize() is not implemented for current backend:", backend)

I found this for full screen mode on Ubuntu

#Show full screen
mng = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
mng.full_screen_toggle()

Here is a function based on @Pythonio’s answer. I encapsulate it into a function that automatically detects which backend is it using and do the corresponding actions.

def plt_set_fullscreen():
    backend = str(plt.get_backend())
    mgr = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
    if backend == 'TkAgg':
        if os.name == 'nt':
            mgr.window.state('zoomed')
        else:
            mgr.resize(*mgr.window.maxsize())
    elif backend == 'wxAgg':
        mgr.frame.Maximize(True)
    elif backend == 'Qt4Agg':
        mgr.window.showMaximized()

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def maximize():
    plot_backend = plt.get_backend()
    mng = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
    if plot_backend == 'TkAgg':
        mng.resize(*mng.window.maxsize())
    elif plot_backend == 'wxAgg':
        mng.frame.Maximize(True)
    elif plot_backend == 'Qt4Agg':
        mng.window.showMaximized()

Then call function maximize() before plt.show()

For backend GTK3Agg, use maximize() – notably with a lower case m:

manager = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
manager.window.maximize()

Tested in Ubuntu 20.04 with Python 3.8.

For Tk-based backend (TkAgg), these two options maximize & fullscreen the window:

plt.get_current_fig_manager().window.state('zoomed')
plt.get_current_fig_manager().window.attributes('-fullscreen', True)

When plotting into multiple windows, you need to write this for each window:

data = rasterio.open(filepath)

blue, green, red, nir = data.read()
plt.figure(1)
plt.subplot(121); plt.imshow(blue);
plt.subplot(122); plt.imshow(red);
plt.get_current_fig_manager().window.state('zoomed')

rgb = np.dstack((red, green, blue))
nrg = np.dstack((nir, red, green))
plt.figure(2)
plt.subplot(121); plt.imshow(rgb);
plt.subplot(122); plt.imshow(nrg);
plt.get_current_fig_manager().window.state('zoomed')

plt.show()

Here, both ‘figures’ are plotted in separate windows. Using a variable such as

figure_manager = plt.get_current_fig_manager()

might not maximize the second window, since the variable still refers to the first window.

I collected a few answers from the threads I was looking at when trying to achieve the same thing. This is the function I am using right now which maximizes all plots and doesn’t really care about the backend being used. I run it at the end of the script. It does still run into the problem mentioned by others using multiscreen setups, in that fm.window.maxsize() will get the total screen size rather than just that of the current monitor. If you know the screensize you want them you can replace *fm.window.maxsize() with the tuple (width_inches, height_inches).

Functionally all this does is grab a list of figures, and resize them to matplotlibs current interpretation of the current maximum window size.

def maximizeAllFigures():
    '''
    Maximizes all matplotlib plots.
    '''
    for i in plt.get_fignums():
        plt.figure(i)
        fm = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
        fm.resize(*fm.window.maxsize())

I have tried most of above solutions but none of them works well on my Windows 10 with Python 3.10.5.

Below is what I found that works perfectly on my side.

import ctypes

mng = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
mng.resize(ctypes.windll.user32.GetSystemMetrics(0), ctypes.windll.user32.GetSystemMetrics(1))