How to save all the variables in the current python session?

If you use shelve, you do not have to remember the order in which the objects are pickled, since shelve gives you a dictionary-like object:

To shelve your work:

import shelve

T='Hiya'
val=[1,2,3]

filename='/tmp/shelve.out'
my_shelf = shelve.open(filename,'n') # 'n' for new

for key in dir():
    try:
        my_shelf[key] = globals()[key]
    except TypeError:
        #
        # __builtins__, my_shelf, and imported modules can not be shelved.
        #
        print('ERROR shelving: {0}'.format(key))
my_shelf.close()

To restore:

my_shelf = shelve.open(filename)
for key in my_shelf:
    globals()[key]=my_shelf[key]
my_shelf.close()

print(T)
# Hiya
print(val)
# [1, 2, 3]

Here is a way saving the Spyder workspace variables using the spyderlib functions

#%%  Load data from .spydata file
from spyderlib.utils.iofuncs import load_dictionary

globals().update(load_dictionary(fpath)[0])
data = load_dictionary(fpath)



#%% Save data to .spydata file
from spyderlib.utils.iofuncs import save_dictionary
def variablesfilter(d):
    from spyderlib.widgets.dicteditorutils import globalsfilter
    from spyderlib.plugins.variableexplorer import VariableExplorer
    from spyderlib.baseconfig import get_conf_path, get_supported_types

    data = globals()
    settings = VariableExplorer.get_settings()

    get_supported_types()
    data = globalsfilter(data,                   
                         check_all=True,
                         filters=tuple(get_supported_types()['picklable']),
                         exclude_private=settings['exclude_private'],
                         exclude_uppercase=settings['exclude_uppercase'],
                         exclude_capitalized=settings['exclude_capitalized'],
                         exclude_unsupported=settings['exclude_unsupported'],
                         excluded_names=settings['excluded_names']+['settings','In'])
    return data

def saveglobals(filename):
    data = globalsfiltered()
    save_dictionary(data,filename)


#%%

savepath = 'test.spydata'

saveglobals(savepath) 

Let me know if it works for you. David B-H

Having sat here and failed to save the globals() as a dictionary, I discovered you can pickle a session using the dill library.

This can be done by using:

import dill                            #pip install dill --user
filename = 'globalsave.pkl'
dill.dump_session(filename)

# and to load the session again:
dill.load_session(filename)

One very easy way that might satisfy your needs. For me, it did pretty well:

Simply, click on this icon on the Variable Explorer (right side of Spider):