Install a Python package into a different directory using pip

Question

I know the obvious answer is to use virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper  but for various reasons I can t don t want to do that   So how do I modify the command  pip install package name   to make pip install the package somewhere other than the default site-packages

User · Answer

Instead of the --target option or the --install-options option  I have found that the following works well  from discussion on a bug regarding this very thing at https   github com pypa pip issues 446    PYTHONUSERBASE  path to install to pip install --user    Or set the PYTHONUSERBASE directory in your environment before running the command  using export PYTHONUSERBASE  path to install to   This uses the very useful --user option but tells it to make the bin  lib  share and other directories you d expect under a custom prefix rather than  HOME  local   Then you can add this to your PATH  PYTHONPATH and other variables as you would a normal installation directory   Note that you may also need to specify the --upgrade and --ignore-installed options if any packages upon which this depends require newer versions to be installed in the PYTHONUSERBASE directory  to override the system-provided versions   A full example   PYTHONUSERBASE  opt mysterypackage-1 0 python-deps pip install --user --upgrade numpy scipy     to install the scipy and numpy package most recent versions into a directory which you can then include in your PYTHONPATH like so  using bash and for python 2 6 on CentOS 6 for this example    export PYTHONPATH  opt mysterypackage-1 0 python-deps lib64 python2 6 site-packages  PYTHONPATH export PATH  opt mysterypackage-1 0 python-deps bin  PATH   Using virtualenv is still a better and neater solution

User · Answer

Tested these options with python3 5 and pip 9 0 3   pip install --target  myfolder  packages    Installs ALL packages including dependencies under  myfolder  Does not take into account that dependent packages are already installed elsewhere in Python  You will find packages from  myfolder  package name   In case you have multiple Python versions  this doesn t take that into account  no Python version in package folder name    pip install --prefix  myfolder  packages   Checks are dependencies already installed  Will install packages into  myfolder lib python3 5 site-packages  packages   pip install --root  myfolder  packages   Checks dependencies like --prefix but install location will be  myfolder usr local lib python3 5 site-packages  package name    pip install --user  packages   Will install packages into  HOME   home  USER   local lib python3 5 site-packages Python searches automatically from this  local path so you don t need to put it to your PYTHONPATH       In most of the cases --user is the best option to use   In case home folder can t be used because of some reason then --prefix

User · Answer

If you are using brew with python  unfortunately  pip pip3 ships with very limited options  You do not have --install-option  --target  --user options as mentioned above      Note on pip install --user    The normal pip install --user is disabled for brewed Python  This is because of a bug in distutils  because Homebrew writes a distutils cfg which sets the package prefix    A possible workaround  which puts executable scripts in   Library Python   bin  is       python -m pip install --user --install-option  --prefix    lt package-name gt       You might find this line very cumbersome  I suggest use pyenv for management   If you are using   brew upgrade python python3  Ironically you are actually downgrade pip functionality    I post this answer  simply because pip in my mac osx does not have --target option  and I have spent hours fixing it

User · Answer

Newer versions of pip  8 or later  can directly use the --prefix option   pip install --prefix  PREFIX PATH package name   where  PREFIX PATH is the installation prefix where lib  bin and other top-level folders are placed

User · Answer

I suggest to follow the documentation and create    pip pip conf file  Note in the documentation there are missing specified header directory  which leads to following error   error  install-base or install-platbase supplied  but installation scheme is incomplete   The full working content of conf file is    install  install-base  HOME install-purelib python lib install-platlib python lib  PLAT install-scripts python scripts install-headers python include install-data python data   Unfortunatelly I can install  but when try to uninstall pip tells me there is no such package for uninstallation process     so something is still wrong but the package goes to its predefined location

User · Answer

Nobody seems to have mentioned the -t option but that the easiest   pip install -t  lt direct directory gt   lt package gt

User · Answer

With pip v1 5 6 on Python v2 7 3  GNU Linux   option --root allows to specify a global installation prefix   apparently  irrespective of specific package s options  Try f i      pip install --root  alternative prefix path package name

User · Answer

Installing a Python package often only includes some pure Python files  If the package includes data  scripts and or executables  these are installed in different directories from the pure Python files   Assuming your package has no data scripts executables  and that you want  your Python files to go into  python packages package name  and not some subdirectory a few levels below  python packages as when using --prefix   you can use the one time command   pip install --install-option  --install-purelib  python packages  package name   If you want all  or most  of your packages to go there  you can edit your    pip pip conf to include    install  install-option --install-purelib  python packages   That way you can t forget about having to specify it again and again   Any excecutables data scripts included in the package will still go to their default places unless you specify addition install options  --prefix --install-data --install-scripts  etc   for details look at the custom installation options

User · Answer

To add to the already good advice  as I had an issue installing IPython when I didn t have write permissions to  usr local   pip uses distutils to do its install and this thread discusses how that can cause a problem as it relies on the sys prefix setting   My issue happened when the IPython install tried to write to   usr local share man man1  with Permission denied  As the install failed it didn t seem to write the IPython files in the bin directory   Using  --user  worked and the files were written to    local  Adding    local bin to the  PATH meant I could use  ipython  from there   However I m trying to install this for a number of users and had been given write permission to the  usr local lib python2 7 directory  I created a  bin  directory under there and set directives for distutils   vim    pydistutils cfg   install  install-data  usr local lib python2 7 install-scripts  usr local lib python2 7 bin   then  -I is used to force the install despite previous failures  local install    pip install -I ipython   Then I added  usr local lib python2 7 bin to  PATH   I thought I d include this in case anyone else has similar issues on a machine they don t have sudo access to

User · Answer

Use   pip install --install-option  --prefix  PREFIX PATH  package name   You might also want to use --ignore-installed to force all dependencies to be reinstalled using this new prefix   You can use --install-option to multiple times to add any of the options you can use with python setup py install  --prefix is probably what you want  but there are a bunch more options you could use

User · Answer

pip install packageName -t pathOfDirectory   or  pip install packageName --target pathOfDirectorty

User · Answer

pip3 install  quot package name quot  -t  quot target dir quot   source - https   pip pypa io en stable reference pip install  -t switch   target

User · Answer

pip install  path to package   is now possible    The difference with this and using the -e or --editable flag is that -e links to where the package is saved  i e  your downloads folder   rather than installing it into your python path   This means if you delete move the package to another folder  you won t be able to use it

User · Answer

To pip install a library exactly where I wanted it  I navigated to the location I wanted the directory with the terminal then used  pip install mylibraryName -t      the logic of which I took from this page  https   cloud google com appengine docs python googlecloudstorageclient download

User · Answer

Just add one point to  Ian Bicking s answer   Using the --user option to specify the installed directory also work if one wants to install some Python package into one s home directory  without sudo user right  on remote server   E g     pip install --user python-memcached   The command will install the package into one of the directories that listed in your PYTHONPATH

User · Answer

The --target switch is the thing you re looking for   pip install --target d  somewhere other than the default package name   But you still need to add d  somewhere other than the default to PYTHONPATH to actually use them from that location      -t  --target  lt dir    Install packages into  lt dir   By default this will not replace existing files folders in  lt dir     Use --upgrade to replace existing packages in  lt dir  with new versions      Upgrade pip if target switch is not available   On Linux or OS X   pip install -U pip   On Windows  this works around an issue    python -m pip install -U pip

[python] Install a Python package into a different directory using pip?

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