How To Download Packages In Python On Mac
Sudo pip install pandas Python packages are installed in the operating systems file system where not all users have permission to write files to. This is why you need to run the command as sudo, as sudo elevates your privileges to do this. Read Also: How to install Python 3.8 on Mac using pyenv Buy me a coffee 1. Python Download The Python. Download Python 3.8 First of all download the Python 3.8 package by clicking following link Consider reading: How to install Python 3.7 on Raspberry PI 2. Install Python 3.8 on Mac Now lets install it by double-clicking on the downloaded pkg file.
- How To Download Packages In Python On Mac Os
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- Python On Mac
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- Python Mac Os
Bob Savage <bobsavage@mac.com>
Python on a Macintosh running Mac OS X is in principle very similar to Python onany other Unix platform, but there are a number of additional features such asthe IDE and the Package Manager that are worth pointing out.
4.1. Getting and Installing MacPython¶
Mac OS X 10.8 comes with Python 2.7 pre-installed by Apple. If you wish, youare invited to install the most recent version of Python 3 from the Pythonwebsite (https://www.python.org). A current “universal binary” build of Python,which runs natively on the Mac’s new Intel and legacy PPC CPU’s, is availablethere.
What you get after installing is a number of things:
A
Python3.9
folder in yourApplications
folder. In hereyou find IDLE, the development environment that is a standard part of officialPython distributions; and PythonLauncher, which handles double-clicking Pythonscripts from the Finder.A framework
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework
, which includes thePython executable and libraries. The installer adds this location to your shellpath. To uninstall MacPython, you can simply remove these three things. Asymlink to the Python executable is placed in /usr/local/bin/.
The Apple-provided build of Python is installed in/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework
and /usr/bin/python
,respectively. You should never modify or delete these, as they areApple-controlled and are used by Apple- or third-party software. Remember thatif you choose to install a newer Python version from python.org, you will havetwo different but functional Python installations on your computer, so it willbe important that your paths and usages are consistent with what you want to do.
IDLE includes a help menu that allows you to access Python documentation. If youare completely new to Python you should start reading the tutorial introductionin that document.
If you are familiar with Python on other Unix platforms you should read thesection on running Python scripts from the Unix shell.
4.1.1. How to run a Python script¶
Your best way to get started with Python on Mac OS X is through the IDLEintegrated development environment, see section The IDE and use the Help menuwhen the IDE is running.
If you want to run Python scripts from the Terminal window command line or fromthe Finder you first need an editor to create your script. Mac OS X comes with anumber of standard Unix command line editors, vim andemacs among them. If you want a more Mac-like editor,BBEdit or TextWrangler from Bare Bones Software (seehttp://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.html) are good choices, as isTextMate (see https://macromates.com/). Other editors includeGvim (http://macvim-dev.github.io/macvim/) and Aquamacs(http://aquamacs.org/).
To run your script from the Terminal window you must make sure that/usr/local/bin
is in your shell search path.
How To Download Packages In Python On Mac Os
To run your script from the Finder you have two options:
Drag it to PythonLauncher
Select PythonLauncher as the default application to open yourscript (or any .py script) through the finder Info window and double-click it.PythonLauncher has various preferences to control how your script islaunched. Option-dragging allows you to change these for one invocation, or useits Preferences menu to change things globally.
4.1.2. Running scripts with a GUI¶
With older versions of Python, there is one Mac OS X quirk that you need to beaware of: programs that talk to the Aqua window manager (in other words,anything that has a GUI) need to be run in a special way. Use pythonwinstead of python/how-to-download-creative-cloud-app-on-mac.html. to start such scripts.
With Python 3.9, you can use either python or pythonw.
How To Use Python Mac
4.1.3. Configuration¶
Python on OS X honors all standard Unix environment variables such asPYTHONPATH
, but setting these variables for programs started from theFinder is non-standard as the Finder does not read your .profile
or.cshrc
at startup. You need to create a file~/.MacOSX/environment.plist
. See Apple’s Technical Document QA1067 fordetails.
For more information on installation Python packages in MacPython, see sectionInstalling Additional Python Packages.
4.2. The IDE¶
MacPython ships with the standard IDLE development environment. A goodintroduction to using IDLE can be found athttp://www.hashcollision.org/hkn/python/idle_intro/index.html.
Python On Mac
4.3. Installing Additional Python Packages¶
There are several methods to install additional Python packages:
Packages can be installed via the standard Python distutils mode (
pythonsetup.pyinstall
).Many packages can also be installed via the setuptools extensionor pip wrapper, see https://pip.pypa.io/.
4.4. GUI Programming on the Mac¶
There are several options for building GUI applications on the Mac with Python.
PyObjC is a Python binding to Apple’s Objective-C/Cocoa framework, which isthe foundation of most modern Mac development. Information on PyObjC isavailable from https://pypi.org/project/pyobjc/.
The standard Python GUI toolkit is tkinter
, based on the cross-platformTk toolkit (https://www.tcl.tk). An Aqua-native version of Tk is bundled with OSX by Apple, and the latest version can be downloaded and installed fromhttps://www.activestate.com; it can also be built from source.
wxPython is another popular cross-platform GUI toolkit that runs natively onMac OS X. Packages and documentation are available from https://www.wxpython.org.
PyQt is another popular cross-platform GUI toolkit that runs natively on MacOS X. More information can be found athttps://riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/intro.
How To Download Anaconda Python On Mac
4.5. Distributing Python Applications on the Mac¶
The standard tool for deploying standalone Python applications on the Mac ispy2app. More information on installing and using py2app can be foundat http://undefined.org/python/#py2app.
4.6. Other Resources¶
The MacPython mailing list is an excellent support resource for Python users anddevelopers on the Mac:
Another useful resource is the MacPython wiki:
If you need help installing python on OSX, read on.
For the last three years, I’ve used a mac for all my development. I love the fact that everything ‘just works’ on the platform. That said, when you get into scientific computing and data analytics, especially with python, you can run into some issues.
Just like linux, python is included with the operating system. Unlike linux, this can cause problems long-term for you due to upgrades and changes that Apple may make to the python ecosystem.
On OS X, I recommend those of you starting out to go with Anaconda or Enthought Canopy. As I said in “Installing python on Windows“, I prefer Canopy over Anaconda for scientific computing / data analytics but either will work for you. Installing Canopy on the mac is very similar to installing it on Windows…so I’ll let this post be your guide for installing Canopy.
If you want to get into the nitty-gritty and install and configure python and the modules yourself, you can easily do so, but be prepared to spend some time on the command line.
Before we get started installing python on your Mac, we need to install homebrew, which is a package manager for OS X (it acts similar to the ‘apt’ package manager on ubuntu / debian).
To install homebrew, open a terminal and paste the following:
This command installs the homebrew ecosystem onto your machine and preps your machine to be ready to install various packages, including python.
Installing Python on OSX
Step 1: Let’s get python installed via homebrew. In your terminal, type:
This will install a version of python onto your machine and set up your environment to use that version. This helps mitigate any issues you might have down the road if / when Apple makes changes to the system provided python. Additionally, brew installs pip into the system to make it easy to get the necessary modules onto your machine.
From this point on, we are generally going to follow exactly the same steps that I outline in Installing Python on Linux except we don’t need to install any additional tools.
Step 2: Not required, but highly recommended – install a virtual environment. I recommend virtualenv. Install it with this command:
When you are ready to get started on a new project, type the below command to install python into a new virtual environment (the ‘env’ is the name of the environment). You only have to do this once per project. Note: You should use a folder per project to keep your virtual environments separated.
Whenever you want to work on a specific project, change into that folder and type the following. This will set up your environment with all of your installed python modules:
For the purpose of this walk-through let’s create a new directory, set up a new virtual environment and then install the necessary modules.

- Create a folder in your home directory called ‘projects’.
- Type “mkdir projects” to do this from the command line.
- Change into that folder and then type “mkdir install_example” to create another folder inside the projects folder.
- Type “virtualenv env” to create your virtual environment.
- Type “source env/bin/activate” to begin using this environment
Now that we have our environment ready to go, we need to install some of the modules that are most often used when doing data work inside python. These modules are:

Python Mac Os
- numpy (installed when you install pandas with pip)
The above modules can be installed with one pip command.
You’re ready to start working with python for data analysis on your mac. Just remember, for each virtualenv you create, you’ll need to reinstall these modules if you wish to use them.
Check back here often for more information on using the above modules to actually DO something.