Conda
Table of contents
Advantage to other virtual environments
Unlike some other virtual environments that are dependent on a preinstalled Python, conda is both a Python version manager and a virtual environment manager.
conda makes using different Python versions in different environments easier.
Install Conda (miniforge)
Conda can be installed through homebrew:
brew install miniforge
conda init "$(basename "${SHELL}")"
If you don’t want the base environment activated all the time,
conda config --set auto_activate_base false
Typical usage
To create an environment for a project:
conda create -n myenv python=3.x
conda activate myenv
Create environment
Simplest method is:
conda create -n myenv
To use a specific Python version:
conda create --name myenv python=3.8
Created environments are located in ~/anaconda3/env or ~/miniconda3/env.
If you installed conda via GUI installer, the conda folder may be in /opt.
Confirm environment creation via
conda env list
# OR
conda info --envs
Activate / Deactivate
conda activate myenv
conda deactivate
Install packages
To install packages in current active environment,
conda install pkg-name
# OR for a specific version
conda install pkg-name=1.0.0
To install packages in another environment,
conda install pkg-name -n myenv
Uninstall packages
conda remove pkg-name
List and export dependencies
conda list
To export dependencies (like pip3 freeze > requirements.txt),
conda list --export > requirements.txt
To create an environment with given requirements (like pip3 install -r requirements.txt),
conda create -n myenv --file requirements.txt
Clone environment
To clone an existing environment,
conda create --name <new-env> --clone <existing-env>
Remove environment
Make sure to conda deactivate before removing an environment.
conda env list # Check the env name
conda env remove -n myenv
Installing Python 2.7 on Apple Silicon
In case you need to install Python 2.7 on Apple Silicon, use Rosetta 2:
# Create env with osx-64 subdir
CONDA_SUBDIR=osx-64 conda create -n py27 python=2.7
conda activate py27
# Always use osx-64 subdir for packages in this env
conda config --env --set subdir osx-64
References: