How to add placeholder to an Entry in tkinter?

You can create a class that inherits from Entry like below:

import tkinter as tk

class EntryWithPlaceholder(tk.Entry):
    def __init__(self, master=None, placeholder="PLACEHOLDER", color='grey'):
        super().__init__(master)

        self.placeholder = placeholder
        self.placeholder_color = color
        self.default_fg_color = self['fg']

        self.bind("<FocusIn>", self.foc_in)
        self.bind("<FocusOut>", self.foc_out)

        self.put_placeholder()

    def put_placeholder(self):
        self.insert(0, self.placeholder)
        self['fg'] = self.placeholder_color

    def foc_in(self, *args):
        if self['fg'] == self.placeholder_color:
            self.delete('0', 'end')
            self['fg'] = self.default_fg_color

    def foc_out(self, *args):
        if not self.get():
            self.put_placeholder()

if __name__ == "__main__": 
    root = tk.Tk() 
    username = EntryWithPlaceholder(root, "username")
    password = EntryWithPlaceholder(root, "password", 'blue')
    username.pack()
    password.pack()  
    root.mainloop()

from tkinter import *

root=Tk()
root.geometry("300x200+600+250")
root.config(background="#E0FFFF")
root.resizable(False,False)


def userText(event):
    e1.delete(0,END)
    usercheck=True

def passText(event):
    e2.delete(0, END)
    passcheck=True



a=StringVar()
b=StringVar()
usercheck=False
passcheck=False


Label(root,text="User name",bg="#E0FFFF").place(x=20,y=50)
e1= Entry(root,textvariable=a)
e1.place(x=100,y=50)
e1.insert(0,"Enter username")
e1.bind("<Button>",userText)


Label(root,text="Password",bg="#E0FFFF").place(x=20,y=95)
e2= Entry(root,textvariable=b)
e2.place(x=100,y=95)
e2.insert(0,"Enter password")
e2.bind("<Button>",passText)


root.mainloop()

Updated (Improved Answer):

• Use the on_focus_out function to reinsert the placeholder if the text field is empty (if you don’t want this to happen, you can use the method from the older code)

import tkinter as tk


def on_focus_in(entry):
    if entry.cget('state') == 'disabled':
        entry.configure(state='normal')
        entry.delete(0, 'end')


def on_focus_out(entry, placeholder):
    if entry.get() == "":
        entry.insert(0, placeholder)
        entry.configure(state='disabled')


root = tk.Tk()

entry_x = tk.Entry(root, width=50)
entry_x.pack(pady=10)
entry_x.insert(0, "Place Holder X")
entry_x.configure(state='disabled')

entry_y = tk.Entry(root, width=50)
entry_y.pack(pady=10)
entry_y.insert(0, "Place Holder Y")
entry_y.configure(state='disabled')

x_focus_in = entry_x.bind('<Button-1>', lambda x: on_focus_in(entry_x))
x_focus_out = entry_x.bind(
    '<FocusOut>', lambda x: on_focus_out(entry_x, 'Place Holder X'))

y_focus_in = entry_y.bind('<Button-1>', lambda x: on_focus_in(entry_y))
y_focus_out = entry_y.bind(
    '<FocusOut>', lambda x: on_focus_out(entry_y, 'Place Holder Y'))

root.mainloop()

Note:

• It is discouraged to import *, so we should import like this import tkinter as tk.
• I have created two Entry widgets to depict the changes.

Old (Not Recommended):

This will work for any placeholder you want.

from tkinter import *
root = Tk()

my_entry = Entry(root, width=50)
my_entry.pack()
my_entry.insert(0, "Place Holder")
my_entry.configure(state=DISABLED)

def on_click(event):
    my_entry.configure(state=NORMAL)
    my_entry.delete(0, END)

    # make the callback only work once
    my_entry.unbind('<Button-1>', on_click_id)

on_click_id = my_entry.bind('<Button-1>', on_click)

root.mainloop()

A working placeholder class. What this does is that it binds to <FocusIn> and <FocusOut> so that when you put focus on it if there is no text it will insert your placeholder into it. You can also change the color on if it is selected or not.

class Placeholder:
    def __init__(self,master,placeholder='',placeholdercolor='grey',color='black',**kwargs):
        self.e = Entry(master,fg=placeholdercolor,**kwargs)
        self.e.bind('<FocusIn>',self.focus_in)
        self.e.bind('<FocusOut>',self.focus_out)
        self.e.insert(0, placeholder)
        self.placeholder = placeholder
        self.placeholdercolor=placeholdercolor
        self.color = color

    def pack(self,side=None,**kwargs):
        self.e.pack(side=side,**kwargs)

    def place(self,side=None,**kwargs):
        self.e.place(side=side,**kwargs)

    def grid(self,column=None,**kwargs):
        self.e.grid(column=column,**kwargs)

    def focus_in(self,e):
        if self.e.get() == self.placeholder:
            self.e.delete(0,END)
        self.e.configure(fg=self.color)

    def focus_out(self,e):
        if self.e.get() == '':
            self.e.configure(fg=self.placeholdercolor)
            self.e.delete(0,END)
            self.e.insert(0,self.placeholder)

For a more compact solution than the above listed, I suggest that you create a function that would erase the text box on a click event (lambda), as shown here.

from tkinter import *   

def clear_entry(event, entry):
    entry.delete(0, END)
    entry.unbind('<Button-1>', click_event)

ui = Tk()

entry = Entry(ui)

entry.pack()
placeholder_text = '<enter-placeholder>'
entry.insert(0, placeholder_text)

entry.bind("<Button-1>", lambda event: clear_entry(event, entry))

ui.mainloop()

The "<Button-1>" stands for when you left-click the entry box, so do not alter it, and once you click on the box, it will trigger the event and run the function clear_entry. You have to declare the function and the entry element before defining placeholder_text and using entry.insert. Hopefully, this is a viable solution to this problem.

My solution is to subclass the tk.Entry and control the content and color, binding the <FocusIn> and <FocusOut> events to methods that fill and clear the text as necessary. This is the behavior:

Here the complete example code:

import tkinter as tk

class PlaceholderEntry(tk.Entry):
    def __init__(self, master=None, placeholder='', cnf={}, fg='black',
                 fg_placeholder='grey50', *args, **kw):
        super().__init__(master=None, cnf={}, bg='white', *args, **kw)
        self.fg = fg
        self.fg_placeholder = fg_placeholder
        self.placeholder = placeholder
        self.bind('<FocusOut>', lambda event: self.fill_placeholder())
        self.bind('<FocusIn>', lambda event: self.clear_box())
        self.fill_placeholder()

    def clear_box(self):
        if not self.get() and super().get():
            self.config(fg=self.fg)
            self.delete(0, tk.END)

    def fill_placeholder(self):
        if not super().get():
            self.config(fg=self.fg_placeholder)
            self.insert(0, self.placeholder)
    
    def get(self):
        content = super().get()
        if content == self.placeholder:
            return ''
        return content

class App(tk.Frame):
    def __init__(self, master=None):
        self.root = master
        super().__init__(master, borderwidth=0, relief=tk.RAISED)
        
        self.root.title('Placeholder example')
        self.pack_propagate(False)
        self.pack()
        
        self.entry = PlaceholderEntry(self.root, placeholder='This text is a placeholder')
        self.entry.pack()
        
        self.btn = tk.Button(self.root, text='Nothing', highlightcolor='cyan')
        self.btn.pack()
        

root = tk.Tk()
app = App(master=root)

app.root.mainloop()

Joining Nae and Stephen Lins solutions with text field

text = Text(ui)
text.pack()
text.insert('1.0', 'text placeholder')
text.bind("<FocusIn>", lambda args: text.delete('1.0', 'end'))

If you combine the entry field with a string variable all of this becomes a lot easier

from tkinter import *
from tkinter import ttk
from typing import Optional


class PlaceholderEntry:
    
    def __init__(self, root: Tk | Frame | ttk.Frame | ttk.LabelFrame | Toplevel, string_variable: Optional[StringVar] = None, style: str = '', width: int = 25, placeholder_text: str = '', text_color: str = 'black', placeholder_color: str = 'grey50'):
        self._placeholder_text = placeholder_text
        self._placeholder_color = placeholder_color
        self._text_color = text_color
        self._text_var = string_variable if string_variable else StringVar(root)
        self.__text_var.set(placeholder_text)
        self.__entry = ttk.Entry(root, textvariable=self.__text_var, style=style, width=width)
        self._entry.bind('<FocusOut>', self._focus_out)
        self._entry.bind('<FocusIn>', self._focus_in)
        self._change_color(False)

    @property
    def entry(self) -> ttk.Entry:
        return self.__entry

    @property
    def string_var(self) -> StringVar:
        return self.__text_var

    def _change_color(self, placeholder: bool) -> None:
        if placeholder:
            self.__entry.configure(foreground=self._text_color)
        else:
            self.__entry.configure(foreground=self._placeholder_color)

    def _focus_in(self, event: Event) -> None:
        if self.__text_var.get() == self._placeholder_text:
            self.__text_var.set('')
        self._change_color(True)

    def _focus_out(self, event: Event) -> None:
        if not self._entry.get():
            self.__text_var.set(self._placeholder_text)
        if self.__entry.get() == self._placeholder_text:
            self._change_color(False)
        else:
            self._change_color(True)

# This is a easy way to add placeholder to an Entry

from tkinter import *

w = Tk()
w.title("Demo")
w.geomerty("500x500")

EntrySetText = StringVar()
EntryText = Entry(w)
EntryText.pack()
EntrySetText.set("Hello World!")

w.mainloop()