Installing Python 2 and 3 on MacOS
Notes on installing and maintaining python 2 and 3 versions on MacOS.
Notes
macOS Sonoma
There is no python pre-installed with Sonoma 14.x. I’m no longer installing a python 2 version … so far no need; fingers crossed!
HomeBrew
Installing python with HomeBrew:
$ brew install python
$ brew info python
==> python@3.11: stable 3.11.6 (bottled)
Interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language
https://www.python.org/
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/python@3.11/3.11.6_1 (3,300 files, 62.2MB) *
Poured from bottle using the formulae.brew.sh API on 2023-12-29 at 14:00:53
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/HEAD/Formula/p/python@3.11.rb
License: Python-2.0
==> Dependencies
Build: pkg-config ✘
Required: mpdecimal ✔, openssl@3 ✔, sqlite ✔, xz ✔
==> Caveats
Python has been installed as
/opt/homebrew/bin/python3
Unversioned symlinks `python`, `python-config`, `pip` etc. pointing to
`python3`, `python3-config`, `pip3` etc., respectively, have been installed into
/opt/homebrew/opt/python@3.11/libexec/bin
You can install Python packages with
pip3 install <package>
They will install into the site-package directory
/opt/homebrew/lib/python3.11/site-packages
tkinter is no longer included with this formula, but it is available separately:
brew install python-tk@3.11
gdbm (`dbm.gnu`) is no longer included in this formula, but it is available separately:
brew install python-gdbm@3.11
`dbm.ndbm` changed database backends in Homebrew Python 3.11.
If you need to read a database from a previous Homebrew Python created via `dbm.ndbm`,
you'll need to read your database using the older version of Homebrew Python and convert to another format.
`dbm` still defaults to `dbm.gnu` when it is installed.
For more information about Homebrew and Python, see: https://docs.brew.sh/Homebrew-and-Python
==> Analytics
install: 182,589 (30 days), 728,874 (90 days), 2,297,989 (365 days)
install-on-request: 121,915 (30 days), 443,490 (90 days), 1,229,628 (365 days)
build-error: 180 (30 days)
I’ve added unversioned python symlinks to the path:
export PATH="$PATH:/opt/homebrew/opt/python@3.11/libexec/bin"
Currently:
$ python --version
Python 3.11.6
Virtual Environments
With python 3, so much easier to create a virtual environment:
$ python -m venv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
(venv) $
Earlier MacOS Versions
I didn’t make a note of which macOS version these earlier notes were made with. High Sierra? Definitely still on Intel processor.
HomeBrew
I’m using brew to install and upgrade system versions of python.
brew install python
brew install python3
Currently, the default python in my system is 2.7:
$ python --version
Python 2.7.16
$ which python
/usr/local/bin/python
$ which python3
/usr/local/bin/python3
Using VirtualEnv
To install virtualenv, it is now recommended to use pip user packages:
pip install --user virtualenv
NB: previously (and I think what I originally used on my machine) was to use easy_install sudo easy_install virtualenv.
Creating a python 3 virtual environment
$ virtualenv -p python3 venv3
$ source venv3/bin/activate
(venv3) $ python --version
Python 3.7.4
(venv3) $ deactivate
Creating a python 2 virtual environment
$ virtualenv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
(venv) $ python --version
Python 2.7.16
(venv) $ deactivate