19/03/2026 21:29 Installing Packages - Python Packaging User Guide

Installing Packages
This section covers the basics of how to install Python packages.

It’s important to note that the term “package” in this context is being used to describe a bundle
of software to be installed (i.e. as a synonym for a distribution). It does not refer to the kind of
package that you import in your Python source code (i.e. a container of modules). It is common
in the Python community to refer to a distribution using the term “package”. Using the term
“distribution” is often not preferred, because it can easily be confused with a Linux distribution, or
another larger software distribution like Python itself.

Requirements for Installing Packages

This section describes the steps to follow before installing other Python packages.

Ensure you can run Python from the command line

Before you go any further, make sure you have Python and that the expected version is available
from your command line. You can check this by running:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 --version

You should get some output like Python 3.6.3 . If you do not have Python, please install the latest
3.x version from [Link] or refer to the Installing Python section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to
Python.

Note

If you’re a newcomer and you get an error like this:

>>> python3 --version

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'python3' is not defined

It’s because this command and other suggested commands in this tutorial are intended to be run in a shell (also
called a terminal or console). See the Python for Beginners getting started tutorial for an introduction to using your
operating system’s shell and interacting with Python.

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19/03/2026 21:29 Installing Packages - Python Packaging User Guide

Note

If you’re using an enhanced shell like IPython or the Jupyter notebook, you can run system commands like those in
this tutorial by prefacing them with a ! character:

In [1]: import sys

!{[Link]} --version
Python 3.6.3

It’s recommended to write {[Link]} rather than plain python in order to ensure that commands are run in
the Python installation matching the currently running notebook (which may not be the same Python installation
that the python command refers to).

Note

Due to the way most Linux distributions are handling the Python 3 migration, Linux users using the system Python
without creating a virtual environment first should replace the python command in this tutorial with python3 and
the python -m pip command with python3 -m pip --user . Do not run any of the commands in this tutorial with sudo :
if you get a permissions error, come back to the section on creating virtual environments, set one up, and then
continue with the tutorial as written.

Ensure you can run pip from the command line

Additionally, you’ll need to make sure you have pip available. You can check this by running:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip --version

If you installed Python from source, with an installer from [Link], or via Homebrew you
should already have pip. If you’re on Linux and installed using your OS package manager, you
may have to install pip separately, see Installing pip/setuptools/wheel with Linux Package
Managers.

If pip isn’t already installed, then first try to bootstrap it from the standard library:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m ensurepip --default-pip

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19/03/2026 21:29 Installing Packages - Python Packaging User Guide

If that still doesn’t allow you to run python -m pip :

Securely Download [Link] [1]

Run python [Link] . [2] This will install or upgrade pip. Additionally, it will install Setuptools
and wheel if they’re not installed already.

Warning

Be cautious if you’re using a Python install that’s managed by your operating system or another package
manager. [Link] does not coordinate with those tools, and may leave your system in an inconsistent state.
You can use python [Link] --prefix=/usr/local/ to install in /usr/local which is designed for locally-
installed software.

Ensure pip, setuptools, and wheel are up to date

While pip alone is sufficient to install from pre-built binary archives, up to date copies of the
setuptools and wheel projects are useful to ensure you can also install from source archives:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel

Optionally, create a virtual environment

See section below for details, but here’s the basic venv [3] command to use on a typical Linux
system:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m venv tutorial_env

source tutorial_env/bin/activate

This will create a new virtual environment in the tutorial_env subdirectory, and configure the
current shell to use it as the default python environment.

Creating Virtual Environments

Python “Virtual Environments” allow Python packages to be installed in an isolated location for a
particular application, rather than being installed globally. If you are looking to safely install
global command line tools, see Installing stand alone command line tools.

Imagine you have an application that needs version 1 of LibFoo, but another application requires
version 2. How can you use both these applications? If you install everything into
/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages (or whatever your platform’s standard location is), it’s easy to
end up in a situation where you unintentionally upgrade an application that shouldn’t be
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19/03/2026 21:29 Installing Packages - Python Packaging User Guide

Or more generally, what if you want to install an application and leave it be? If an application
works, any change in its libraries or the versions of those libraries can break the application.

Also, what if you can’t install packages into the global site-packages directory? For instance, on a
shared host.

In all these cases, virtual environments can help you. They have their own installation directories
and they don’t share libraries with other virtual environments.

Currently, there are two common tools for creating Python virtual environments:

venv is available by default in Python 3.3 and later, and installs pip into created virtual
environments in Python 3.4 and later (Python versions prior to 3.12 also installed Setuptools).
virtualenv needs to be installed separately, but supports Python 2.7+ and Python 3.3+, and
pip, Setuptools and wheel are installed into created virtual environments by default. Note that
setuptools is no longer included by default starting with Python 3.12 (and virtualenv follows
this behavior).

The basic usage is like so:

Using venv:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m venv <DIR>

source <DIR>/bin/activate

Using virtualenv:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m virtualenv <DIR>

source <DIR>/bin/activate

For more information, see the venv docs or the virtualenv docs.

The use of source under Unix shells ensures that the virtual environment’s variables are set within
the current shell, and not in a subprocess (which then disappears, having no useful effect).

In both of the above cases, Windows users should not use the source command, but should
rather run the activate script directly from the command shell like so:

<DIR>\Scripts\activate

Managing multiple virtual environments directly can become tedious, so the dependency
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latest
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19/03/2026 21:29 Installing Packages - Python Packaging User Guide

Use pip for Installing

pip is the recommended installer. Below, we’ll cover the most common usage scenarios. For more
detail, see the pip docs, which includes a complete Reference Guide.

Installing from PyPI

The most common usage of pip is to install from the Python Package Index using a requirement
specifier. Generally speaking, a requirement specifier is composed of a project name followed by
an optional version specifier. A full description of the supported specifiers can be found in the
Version specifier specification. Below are some examples.

To install the latest version of “SomeProject”:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install "SomeProject"

To install a specific version:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install "SomeProject==1.4"

To install greater than or equal to one version and less than another:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install "SomeProject>=1,<2"

To install a version that’s compatible with a certain version: [4]

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install "SomeProject~=1.4.2"

In this case, this means to install any version “==1.4.*” version that’s also “>=1.4.2”.

Source Distributions vs Wheels

pip can install from either Source Distributions (sdist) or Wheels, but if both are present on PyPI,
pip will prefer a compatible wheel. You can override pip`s default behavior by e.g. using its –no-
binary
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19/03/2026 21:29 Installing Packages - Python Packaging User Guide

If pip does not find a wheel to install, it will locally build a wheel and cache it for future installs,
instead of rebuilding the source distribution in the future.

Upgrading packages
Upgrade an already installed SomeProject to the latest from PyPI.

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install --upgrade SomeProject

Installing to the User Site

To install packages that are isolated to the current user, use the --user flag:

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install --user SomeProject

For more information see the User Installs section from the pip docs.

Note that the --user flag has no effect when inside a virtual environment - all installation
commands will affect the virtual environment.

If SomeProject defines any command-line scripts or console entry points, --user will cause them
to be installed inside the user base’s binary directory, which may or may not already be present in
your shell’s PATH . (Starting in version 10, pip displays a warning when installing any scripts to a
directory outside PATH .) If the scripts are not available in your shell after installation, you’ll need
to add the directory to your PATH :

On Linux and macOS you can find the user base binary directory by running python -m site --
user-base and adding bin to the end. For example, this will typically print ~/.local (with ~
expanded to the absolute path to your home directory) so you’ll need to add ~/.local/bin to
your PATH . You can set your PATH permanently by modifying ~/.profile.
On Windows you can find the user base binary directory by running py -m site --user-site
and replacing site-packages with Scripts . For example, this could return
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Python36\site-packages so you would need to set your PATH
to include C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Python36\Scripts . You can set your user PATH
permanently in the Control Panel. You may need to log out for the PATH changes to take
effect.

Requirements
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19/03/2026 21:29 Installing Packages - Python Packaging User Guide

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install -r [Link]

Installing from VCS

Install a project from VCS in “editable” mode. For a full breakdown of the syntax, see pip’s section
on VCS Support.

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install -e SomeProject @ git+[Link] # from git

python3 -m pip install -e SomeProject @ hg+[Link] # from mercu
python3 -m pip install -e SomeProject @ svn+svn://[Link]/some_pkg/trunk/ # from svn
python3 -m pip install -e SomeProject @ git+[Link] # from a bra

 

Installing from other Indexes

Install from an alternate index

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install --index-url [Link] SomeProject

Search an additional index during install, in addition to PyPI

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install --extra-index-url [Link] SomeProject

Installing from a local src tree

Installing from local src in Development Mode, i.e. in such a way that the project appears to be
installed, but yet is still editable from the src tree.

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install -e <path>

You can also install normally from src

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19/03/2026 21:29 Installing Packages - Python Packaging User Guide

python3 -m pip install <path>

Installing from local archives

Install a particular source archive file.

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install ./downloads/[Link]

Install from a local directory containing archives (and don’t check PyPI)

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install --no-index --find-links=[Link] SomeProject

python3 -m pip install --no-index --find-links=/local/dir/ SomeProject
python3 -m pip install --no-index --find-links=relative/dir/ SomeProject

Installing from other sources

To install from other data sources (for example Amazon S3 storage) you can create a helper
application that presents the data in a format compliant with the simple repository API:, and use
the --extra-index-url flag to direct pip to use that index.

./s3helper --port=7777
python -m pip install --extra-index-url [Link] SomeProject

Installing Prereleases
Find pre-release and development versions, in addition to stable versions. By default, pip only
finds stable versions.

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install --pre SomeProject

Installing “Extras”
Extras are optional “variants” of a package, which may include additional dependencies, and
thereby enable additional functionality from the package. If you wish to install an extra for a
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19/03/2026 21:29 Installing Packages - Python Packaging User Guide

Unix/macOS Windows

python3 -m pip install 'SomePackage[PDF]'

python3 -m pip install 'SomePackage[PDF]==3.0'
python3 -m pip install -e '.[PDF]' # editable project in current directory

[1] “Secure” in this context means using a modern browser or a tool like curl that verifies SSL certificates
when downloading from https URLs.

[2] Depending on your platform, this may require root or Administrator access. pip is currently considering
changing this by making user installs the default behavior.

[3] Beginning with Python 3.4, venv (a stdlib alternative to virtualenv) will create virtualenv environments with
pip pre-installed, thereby making it an equal alternative to virtualenv.

[4] The compatible release specifier was accepted in PEP 440 and support was released in Setuptools v8.0
and pip v6.0

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