CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpip
sorin
sorin

Reputation: 170460

How do I install a pip package globally instead of locally?

I am trying to install flake8 package using pip3 and it seems that it refuses to install because is already installed in one local location.

How can I force it to install globally (system level)?

pip3 install flake8
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): flake8 in ./.local/lib/python3.4/site-packages

Please note that I would prefer a generic solution (that should work on Debian, OS X maybe even Windows), one that should be used on any platform so I don't want to specify the destination myself.

For some weird reason it behaves like I already specified --user which in my case I didn't.

The only way I was able to install a package globally was to first remove it and install it again after this. Somehow it seems that pip (8.1.1) refuses to install a package globally if it exists locally.

Disclaimer: No virtual environments were used or harmed during the experiments.

Upvotes: 204

Views: 420565

Answers (7)

SerSergious
SerSergious

Reputation: 490

Sorry for digging up the topic but there is a multiple issues which we could face on Windows OS.

  1. Lack of privileges in Python location for current user
  2. User AppData/Python location has not been added to PATH
  3. Package was installed with --user flag

How to really resolve these issues:

  1. Open your Python location and click Properties -> Security -> Edit
  2. Click Add... and add the "Users" group or alternatively add your current user which uses Python. Set checkbox "Full control"
  3. Change windows variables and in PATH add C:\Users\your_username>\AppData\Roaming\Programs<Python Version>\ This allow you to install packages for current user instead of globally

Upvotes: 1

Aaj Kaal
Aaj Kaal

Reputation: 1284

For windows 10:

Installing Python for all users is straight forward since when you install you have to click a checkbox for all users.

In order to install modules globally under C:\Program Files\Python310\Lib\site-packages start CMD prompt as administrator and then install modules

python -m pip install selenium

Upvotes: 15

Mauro Baraldi
Mauro Baraldi

Reputation: 6575

For the Windows case:

Are you using virtualenv? If yes, deactivate the virtualenv. If you are not using a venv, the package should have already be installed on system level (system-wide). In that case, try to upgrade the package.

pip install flake8 --upgrade

Upvotes: 5

uinstinct
uinstinct

Reputation: 740

Where does pip installations happen in python?

I will give a windows solution which I was facing and took a while to solve.

First of all, in windows (I will be taking Windows as the OS here), if you do pip install <package_name>, it will be by default installed globally (if you have not activated a virtual enviroment). Once you activate a virtual enviroment and you are inside it, all pip installations will be inside that virtual enviroment.

pip is installing the said packages but not I cannot use them?

For this pip might be giving you a warning that the pip executables like pip3.exe, pip.exe are not on your path variable. For this you might add this path ( usually - C:\Users\<your_username>\AppData\Roaming\Programs\Python\ ) to your enviromental variables. After this restart your cmd, and now try to use your installed python package. It should work now.

Upvotes: 9

nikhilweee
nikhilweee

Reputation: 4529

Why don't you try sudo with the H flag? This should do the trick.

sudo -H pip install flake8

A regular sudo pip install flake8 will try to use your own home directory. The -H instructs it to use the system's home directory. More info at https://stackoverflow.com/a/43623102/

Upvotes: 234

LIT
LIT

Reputation: 73

I actually don‘t see your issue. Globally is any package which is in your python3 path‘s site package folder.

If you want to use it just locally then you must configure a virtualenv and reinstall the packages with an activated virtual environment.

Upvotes: 1

Emma
Emma

Reputation: 470

Maybe --force-reinstall would work, otherwise --ignore-installed should do the trick.

Upvotes: 21

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