[python] How to uninstall a package installed with pip install --user

There is a --user option for pip which can install a Python package per user:

pip install --user [python-package-name]

I used this option to install a package on a server for which I do not have root access. What I need now is to uninstall the installed package on the current user. I tried to execute this command:

pip uninstall --user [python-package-name]

But I got:

no such option: --user

How can I uninstall a package that I installed with pip install --user, other than manually finding and deleting the package?

I've found this article

pip cannot uninstall from per-user site-packages directory

which describes that uninstalling packages from user directory does not supported. According to the article if it was implemented correctly then with

pip uninstall [package-name]

the package that was installed will be also searched in user directories. But a problem still remains for me. What if the same package was installed both system-wide and per-user? What if someone needs to target a specific user directory?

The answer is Not possible yet. You have to remove it manually.

example to uninstall package 'oauth2client' on MacOS:

pip uninstall oauth2client

As @thomas-lotze has mentioned, currently pip tooling does not do that as there is no corresponding --user option. But what I find is that I can check in ~/.local/bin and look for the specific pip#.# which looks to me like it corresponds to the --user option.

In my case:

antho@noctil: ~/.l/bin$ pwd
/home/antho/.local/bin
antho@noctil: ~/.l/bin$ ls pip*
pip  pip2  pip2.7  pip3  pip3.5

And then just uninstall with the specific pip version.

I am running Anaconda version 4.3.22 and a python3.6.1 environment, and had this problem. Here's the history and the fix:

pip uninstall opencv-python # -- the original step. failed.

ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.

I did this into my python3.6 environment and got this error.

python -m pip install opencv-python # same package as above.
conda install -c conda-forge opencv # separate install parallel to opencv
pip-install opencv-contrib-python # suggested by another user here. doesn't resolve it.

Next, I tried downloading python3.6 and putting the python3.dll in the folder and in various folders. nothing changed.

finally, this fixed it:

pip uninstall opencv-python

(the other conda-forge version is still installed) This left only the conda version, and that works in 3.6.

>>>import cv2
>>>

working!

I strongly recommend you to use virtual environments for python package installation. With virtualenv, you prevent any package conflict and total isolation from your python related userland commands.

To delete all your package follow this;

It's possible to uninstall packages installed with --user flag. This one worked for me;

pip freeze --user | xargs pip uninstall -y

For python 3;

pip3 freeze --user | xargs pip3 uninstall -y

But somehow these commands don't uninstall setuptools and pip. After those commands (if you really want clean python) you may delete them with;

pip uninstall setuptools && pip uninstall pip

Be careful though, for those who using pip install --user some_pkg inside a virtual environment.

$ path/to/python -m venv ~/my_py_venv
$ source ~/my_py_venv/bin/activate
(my_py_venv) $ pip install --user some_pkg
(my_py_venv) $ pip uninstall some_pkg
WARNING: Skipping some_pkg as it is not installed.
(my_py_venv) $ pip list
# Even `pip list` will not properly list the `some_pkg` in this case

In this case, you have to deactivate the current virtual environment, then use the corresponding python/pip executable to list or uninstall the user site packages:

(my_py_venv) $ deactivate
$ path/to/python -m pip list
$ path/to/python -m pip uninstall some_pkg

Note that this issue was reported few years ago. And it seems that the current conclusion is: --user is not valid inside a virtual env's pip, since a user location doesn't really make sense for a virtual environment.