How to save a Seaborn plot into a file

Question

I tried the following code (test_seaborn.py):

import matplotlib
matplotlib.use('Agg')
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
matplotlib.style.use('ggplot')
import seaborn as sns
sns.set()
df = sns.load_dataset('iris')
sns_plot = sns.pairplot(df, hue='species', size=2.5)
fig = sns_plot.get_figure()
fig.savefig("output.png")
#sns.plt.show()

But I get this error:

  Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test_searborn.py", line 11, in <module>
    fig = sns_plot.get_figure()
AttributeError: 'PairGrid' object has no attribute 'get_figure'

I expect the final output.png will exist and look like this:

How can I resolve the problem?

@Terry Wang's answer down below worked for me - Python 2.7.12 and seaborn 0.7.1 — Cristian E. Nuno
– Cristian E. Nuno, Commented Sep 20, 2018 at 19:04
A one-liner for seaborn 0.9: sns.regplot(x='age', y='income', data=pd.read_csv('income_data.csv')).get_figure().savefig('income_f_age.png') — Anton Tarasenko
– Anton Tarasenko, Commented Nov 18, 2018 at 14:17

Mateen Ulhaq · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-12 13:54:36Z

411

The following calls allow you to access the figure (Seaborn 0.8.1 compatible):

swarm_plot = sns.swarmplot(...)
fig = swarm_plot.get_figure()
fig.savefig("out.png")

as seen previously in this answer.

The suggested solutions are incompatible with Seaborn 0.8.1. They give the following errors because the Seaborn interface has changed:

AttributeError: 'AxesSubplot' object has no attribute 'fig'
When trying to access the figure

AttributeError: 'AxesSubplot' object has no attribute 'savefig'
when trying to use the savefig directly as a function

UPDATE: I have recently used PairGrid object from seaborn to generate a plot similar to the one in this example. In this case, since GridPlot is not a plot object like, for example, sns.swarmplot, it has no get_figure() function. It is possible to directly access the matplotlib figure by:

fig = myGridPlotObject.fig

edited Jan 12, 2022 at 13:54

Mateen Ulhaq

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answered Sep 14, 2016 at 4:16

Salvatore Cosentino

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2 Comments

Ryszard Cetnarski Over a year ago

This is the only answer that works for PairGrid and JointGrid as well, I think it should be accepted.

Mini Fridge Over a year ago

The requirement of get_figure to save the figure is very annoying. It should be possible using on line to save a plot to a file.

BazookaDave · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-03 21:09:58Z

89

Some of the above solutions did not work for me. The .fig attribute was not found when I tried that and I was unable to use .savefig() directly. However, what did work was:

sns_plot.figure.savefig("output.png")

I am a newer Python user, so I do not know if this is due to an update. I wanted to mention it in case anybody else runs into the same issues as I did.

answered Jan 3, 2017 at 21:09

BazookaDave

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2 Comments

Wayne Over a year ago

This worked for me with a seaborn.swarmplot, but for seaborn.lmplot that won't work. With seaborn.lmplot, I found sns_plot.savefig("output.png") worked like in Salvatore's answer, but without need for get_figure() call.

Cornelius Roemer Over a year ago

This worked for displot with seaborn 0.11.2. The only answer I could get to work!

Jade Cacho · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-19 04:32:12Z

38

Fewer lines for 2019 searchers:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns

df = sns.load_dataset('iris')
sns_plot = sns.pairplot(df, hue='species', height=2.5)
plt.savefig('output.png')

UPDATE NOTE: size was changed to height.

edited Dec 19, 2019 at 4:32

answered Dec 12, 2019 at 12:57

Jade Cacho

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4 Comments

Minions Over a year ago

it produces white image!

Jade Cacho Over a year ago

@user_007 not sure why you're getting white image. I just tested the code today and it's fine to both Jupyter Notebook and the output file. You might want to update your console/Python and check your computer View settings.

Reine Baudache Over a year ago

I had a white figure as well. I corrected it with: sns_plot.savefig('output.png')

Timur Shtatland Over a year ago

Works for pdf output too.

Simon Gibbons · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-27 09:18:10Z

18

You should just be able to use the savefig method of sns_plot directly.

sns_plot.savefig("output.png")

For clarity with your code if you did want to access the matplotlib figure that sns_plot resides in then you can get it directly with

fig = sns_plot.fig

In this case there is no get_figure method as your code assumes.

edited Aug 27, 2015 at 9:18

answered Aug 27, 2015 at 9:03

Simon Gibbons

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Comments

SriK · Accepted Answer · 2021-03-31 16:36:14Z

13

I couldnt get the other answers to work and finally got this to work for me for matplotlib==3.2.1 . Its especially true if you are doing this within a for loop or some iterative approach.

sns.scatterplot(
    data=df_hourly, x="date_week", y="value",hue='variable'
)
plt.savefig('./f1.png')
plt.show()

Note that the savefig must be before the show call. Otherwise an empty image is saved.

edited Mar 31, 2021 at 16:36

answered Mar 31, 2021 at 16:17

SriK

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3 Comments

Anscandance Over a year ago

This actually helped! Thank you. This is the only way it worked for me in Jupyter Notebook

SriK Over a year ago

@Anscandance good to hear ! Yeah, i couldnt get the other solutions to work properly as well in the notebook.

sander Over a year ago

Can confirm this works with Matplotlib version 3.7.1 as well. All of the other answers in this thread did not work.

Terry · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-12 03:55:49Z

12

I use distplot and get_figure to save picture successfully.

sns_hist = sns.distplot(df_train['SalePrice'])
fig = sns_hist.get_figure()
fig.savefig('hist.png')

answered Dec 12, 2017 at 3:55

Terry

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1 Comment

Scott Yang Over a year ago

Worked for my environment: function sns.distplot() in python 3.5.6 with seaborn 0.9.0 . Besides, function sns.pairplot() doesn't need the line of get_figure()

4b0 · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-29 09:24:05Z

5

This works for me

import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline

sns.factorplot(x='holiday',data=data,kind='count',size=5,aspect=1)
plt.savefig('holiday-vs-count.png')

edited Jan 29, 2019 at 9:24

4b0

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answered Jan 27, 2019 at 15:16

Niraj D Pandey

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Comments

tttthomasssss · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-02 22:27:11Z

4

Its also possible to just create a matplotlib figure object and then use plt.savefig(...):

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
import pandas as pd

df = sns.load_dataset('iris')
plt.figure() # Push new figure on stack
sns_plot = sns.pairplot(df, hue='species', size=2.5)
plt.savefig('output.png') # Save that figure

edited Dec 2, 2019 at 22:27

answered Nov 14, 2018 at 10:54

tttthomasssss

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1 Comment

Cornelius Roemer Over a year ago

Doesn't work at least with displot

shekhar · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-03 23:34:34Z

2

You would get an error for using sns.figure.savefig("output.png") in seaborn 0.8.1.

Instead use:

import seaborn as sns

df = sns.load_dataset('iris')
sns_plot = sns.pairplot(df, hue='species', size=2.5)
sns_plot.savefig("output.png")

answered Mar 3, 2018 at 23:34

shekhar

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Comments

wjandrea · Accepted Answer · 2024-11-12 16:14:35Z

1

With python 3.13 "fig" is deprecated use "figure".

df = sns.load_dataset('iris')
sns_plot = sns.pairplot(df, hue='species', size=2.5)
fig = sns_plot.figure
fig.savefig('file.jpg')

edited Nov 12, 2024 at 16:14

wjandrea

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answered Nov 12, 2024 at 16:12

lisandro

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Comments

Jeffrey Goldberg · Accepted Answer · 2025-04-14 03:42:32Z

0

Some of the confusion is with what type of object sns_plot is. I believe that it will be an Axes. For this case, I have a small little wrapper function that works for me.

from matplotlib.axes import Axes
...
def save_axes(ax: Axes, fname: str, **kwargs):
    fig = ax.get_figure(root = True)
    if fig is None:
        raise Exception("Couldn't get figure")
    fig.savefig(fname, **kwargs)

So with that defined, I think that

...
sns_plot = ...
save_axes(sns_plot, "output.png")

should work for you.

answered Apr 14 at 3:42

Jeffrey Goldberg

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Comments

petezurich · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-13 20:25:58Z

-4

Just FYI, the below command worked in seaborn 0.8.1 so I guess the initial answer is still valid.

sns_plot = sns.pairplot(data, hue='species', size=3)
sns_plot.savefig("output.png")

edited Aug 13, 2018 at 20:25

petezurich

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answered Apr 4, 2018 at 20:39

Sudhi

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1 Comment

Salvatore Cosentino Over a year ago

Although that code is working, it is not complete. The title says, 'How to save a Seaborn plot into a file' which is more general. Unluckily the proposed solution works with pairplot, but it raises an exception with other 'kinds' of plots. Hopefully in future releases there will a more unified way to obtain the 'figure' object from a seaborn plot.

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