# Is it possible to convert Jupyer Notebook (ipynb file) to desktop app?

**URL:** <https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/is-it-possible-to-convert-jupyer-notebook-ipynb-file-to-desktop-app/11590>\
**Category:** General\
**Tags:** how-to\
**Created:** [November 8, 2021, 9:29am UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/is-it-possible-to-convert-jupyer-notebook-ipynb-file-to-desktop-app/11590 "2021-11-08T09:29:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pplonski](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/discourse.jupyter.org/pplonski/32/5651_2.png) [@pplonski](https://discourse.jupyter.org/u/pplonski)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2021, 9:29am UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/is-it-possible-to-convert-jupyer-notebook-ipynb-file-to-desktop-app/11590/1 "2021-11-08T09:29:35Z")

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Hey, I have a Jupyter Notebook project with a few ipywidgets and visualizations. Is it possible to convert it to a standalone desktop app? I would like the app to run offline. It would be nice to not force other users to install python+packages manually - just exe (I’m on Windows) that will install everything and can be run by no-coders.

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**Author:** ![bollwyvl](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/discourse.jupyter.org/bollwyvl/32/904_2.png) [@bollwyvl](https://discourse.jupyter.org/u/bollwyvl)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2021, 3:11pm UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/is-it-possible-to-convert-jupyer-notebook-ipynb-file-to-desktop-app/11590/2 "2021-11-08T15:11:22Z")

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As soon as “a few ipywidgets and visualizations” includes things like `pandas` and `numpy`, the complexity can go up rather quickly. That being said, it’s plausible that one of the tools like [pyinstaller](https://www.pyinstaller.org/) could be used to build up something for you.

As I usually like shipping upgradeable things, and often use non-python things like `git`, in the past I’ve done a [constructor](https://github.com/conda/constructor) installer build, which can be coaxed into being _relatively_ well-behaved, standalone environments, and presents a desktop icon for launching and uninstalling. Some examples are [robotlab](https://github.com/robots-from-jupyter/robotlab) and [gt-coar-lab](https://github.com/gt-coar/gt-coar-lab/)

In either case, drawing pixels: with `constructor`, one can ship a managed firefox. Both approaches can probably ship a qtwebengine app. Getting off the conda/python path, electron is an option: the [jupyterlab-desktop](https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-desktop) project is currently enjoying some support in that regard… and also uses `constructor` under the hood to provision the python pieces. Customizing this is not for the faint of heart, however: maybe some day!

For something **COMPLETELY DIFFERENT** , it’s also semi-plausible to ship certain content to run only in the browser, _including_ things like `ipywidgets`, and more amazingly, `numpy` and `pandas` with [jupyterlite](https://github.com/jupyterlite/jupyterlite) ([demo](https://jupyterlite.rtfd.io/en/latest/try/lab)). While still very alpha, some folk have started doing pretty cool stuff with it. The shortcoming of this approach:

- a lot of files are loaded from CDN
  - we’re working on it

- the files at present must be served by an actual web server… just about every computer _has_ one, but on windows it’s probably icky like IIS express.
  - would love to figure out some other way (e.g. faking JSON-ish requests with HTML) but it there hasn’t been a super-strong demand signal yet.

- the build is still pretty CLI
  - soon we’ll have some kind of labextension for configuring all the bells and whistles

Good luck!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pplonski](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/discourse.jupyter.org/pplonski/32/5651_2.png) [@pplonski](https://discourse.jupyter.org/u/pplonski)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2021, 11:10am UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/is-it-possible-to-convert-jupyer-notebook-ipynb-file-to-desktop-app/11590/3 "2021-11-12T11:10:27Z")

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Thank you!

Some magical way to one-click pack project from Jupyter Notebook into electron app would be amazing.

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**Author:** ![krassowski](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/discourse.jupyter.org/krassowski/32/1685_2.png) [@krassowski](https://discourse.jupyter.org/u/krassowski)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 7:16pm UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/is-it-possible-to-convert-jupyer-notebook-ipynb-file-to-desktop-app/11590/4 "2021-11-15T19:16:00Z")

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I think that this could be in scope of [GitHub - voila-dashboards/voila: Voilà turns Jupyter notebooks into standalone web applications](https://github.com/voila-dashboards/voila) sub-project. I could imagine Voilà Standolone or Voilà Desktop becoming a thing if there is interest and contributors; it would be pretty useful and awesome.

Also cross-referencing: [Is it possible to convert Jupyter Notebook project to standalone app with Jupyterlab-Desktop? · Issue #333 · jupyterlab/jupyterlab-desktop · GitHub](https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-desktop/issues/333).