diff --git a/WaterColumnPlotter/GUI/GUI_Main.spec b/WaterColumnPlotter/GUI/GUI_Main.spec
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e7143ac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/WaterColumnPlotter/GUI/GUI_Main.spec
@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+# Builds a single-folder EXE for distribution.
+
+from datetime import datetime
+import sys
+import os
+from PyInstaller.building.build_main import Analysis, PYZ, EXE, COLLECT, TOC
+from PyInstaller.compat import is_darwin, is_win
+
+sys.setrecursionlimit(20000)
+
+
+def collect_pkg_data(package, include_py_files=False, subdir=None):
+    from PyInstaller.utils.hooks import get_package_paths, remove_prefix, PY_IGNORE_EXTENSIONS
+
+    # Accept only strings as packages.
+    if type(package) is not str:
+        raise ValueError
+
+    pkg_base, pkg_dir = get_package_paths(package)
+    if subdir:
+        pkg_dir = os.path.join(pkg_dir, subdir)
+    # Walk through all file in the given package, looking for data files.
+    data_toc = TOC()
+    for dir_path, dir_names, files in os.walk(pkg_dir):
+        for f in files:
+            extension = os.path.splitext(f)[1]
+            if include_py_files or (extension not in PY_IGNORE_EXTENSIONS):
+                source_file = os.path.join(dir_path, f)
+                dest_folder = remove_prefix(dir_path, os.path.dirname(pkg_base) + os.sep)
+                dest_file = os.path.join(dest_folder, f)
+                data_toc.append((dest_file, source_file, 'DATA'))
+
+    return data_toc
+
+
+def python_path() -> str:
+    """ Return the python site-specific directory prefix (PyInstaller-aware) """
+
+    # required by PyInstaller
+    if hasattr(sys, '_MEIPASS'):
+
+        if is_win():
+            import win32api
+            # noinspection PyProtectedMember
+            sys_prefix = win32api.GetLongPathName(sys._MEIPASS)
+        else:
+            # noinspection PyProtectedMember
+            sys_prefix = sys._MEIPASS
+
+        print("using _MEIPASS: %s" % sys_prefix)
+        return sys_prefix
+
+    # check if in a virtual environment
+    if hasattr(sys, 'real_prefix'):
+        return sys.real_prefix
+
+    return sys.prefix
+
+
+def collect_folder_data(input_data_folder: str, relative_output_folder: str, recursively: bool = False):
+
+    data_toc = TOC()
+    if not os.path.exists(input_data_folder):
+        print("issue with folder: %s" % input_data_folder)
+        return data_toc
+
+    for dir_path, dir_names, files in os.walk(input_data_folder):
+        for f in files:
+            source_file = os.path.join(dir_path, f)
+            dest_file = os.path.normpath(
+                os.path.join(relative_output_folder, os.path.relpath(dir_path, input_data_folder), f))
+            data_toc.append((dest_file, source_file, 'DATA'))
+
+        if not recursively:
+            break
+
+    return data_toc
+
+
+wcp_data = collect_pkg_data('WaterColumnPlotter')
+print(wcp_data)
+
+a = Analysis(['GUI_Main.py'],
+             pathex=[],
+             hiddenimports=["PIL", "scipy._lib.messagestream", "cftime._cftime", "PySide2.QtPrintSupport",
+                            "pyproj.datadir", "pkg_resources.py2_warn"],
+             excludes=["IPython", "PyQt4", "pandas", "sphinx", "sphinx_rtd_theme", "OpenGL_accelerate",
+                       "FixTk", "tcl", "tk", "_tkinter", "tkinter", "Tkinter", "wx"],
+             hookspath=None,
+             runtime_hooks=None)
+
+pyz = PYZ(a.pure)
+exe = EXE(pyz,
+          a.scripts,
+          exclude_binaries=True,
+          name='WaterColumnPlotter',
+          debug=False,
+          strip=None,
+          upx=True,
+          console=True)
+coll = COLLECT(exe,
+               a.binaries,
+               a.zipfiles,
+               a.datas,
+               wcp_data,
+               strip=None,
+               upx=True,
+               name='WaterColumnPlotter')