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Installation

System Requirements

python 3.7+ is required to install pipx. pipx can run binaries from packages with Python 3.3+. Don't have Python 3.7 or later? See Python 3 Installation & Setup Guide.

You also need to have pip installed on your machine for python3. Installing it varies from system to system. Consult pip's installation instructions. Installing on Linux works best with a Linux Package Manager.

pipx works on macOS, linux, and Windows.

Packaging status

Installing pipx

On macOS:

brew install pipx
pipx ensurepath
sudo pipx ensurepath --global # optional to allow pipx actions in global scope. See "Global installation" section below.

On Linux:

  • Ubuntu 23.04 or above
sudo apt update
sudo apt install pipx
pipx ensurepath
sudo pipx ensurepath --global # optional to allow pipx actions in global scope. See "Global installation" section below.
  • Fedora:
sudo dnf install pipx
pipx ensurepath
sudo pipx ensurepath --global # optional to allow pipx actions in global scope. See "Global installation" section below.
  • Using pip on other distributions:
python3 -m pip install --user pipx
python3 -m pipx ensurepath
sudo pipx ensurepath --global # optional to allow pipx actions in global scope. See "Global installation" section below.

On Windows:

scoop install pipx
pipx ensurepath
  • Install via pip (requires pip 19.0 or later)
# If you installed python using Microsoft Store, replace `py` with `python3` in the next line.
py -m pip install --user pipx

It is possible (even most likely) the above finishes with a WARNING looking similar to this:

WARNING: The script pipx.exe is installed in `<USER folder>\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python3x\Scripts` which is not on PATH

If so, go to the mentioned folder, allowing you to run the pipx executable directly. Enter the following line (even if you did not get the warning):

.\pipx.exe ensurepath

This will add both the above mentioned path and the %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin folder to your search path. Restart your terminal session and verify pipx does run.

Warning

It is not recommended to install pipx via pipx. If you'd like to do this anyway, take a look at the pipx-in-pipx project and read about the limitations there.

Using pipx without installing (via zipapp)

The zipapp can be downloaded from Github releases and you can invoke it with a Python 3.7+ interpreter:

python pipx.pyz ensurepath

Using pipx with pre-commit

Pipx has pre-commit support. This lets you run applications:

  • That can be run using pipx run but don't have native pre-commit support.
  • Using its prebuilt wheel from pypi.org instead of building it from source.
  • Using pipx's --spec and --index-url flags.

Example configuration for use of the code linter yapf. This is to be added to your .pre-commit-config.yaml.

- repo: https://github.com/pypa/pipx
  rev: 53e7f27
  hooks:
    - id: pipx
      alias: yapf
      name: yapf
      args: ["yapf", "-i"]
      types: ["python"]

Installation Options

The default binary location for pipx-installed apps is ~/.local/bin. This can be overridden with the environment variable PIPX_BIN_DIR. The default manual page location for pipx-installed apps is ~/.local/share/man. This can be overridden with the environment variable PIPX_MAN_DIR.

pipx's default virtual environment location is typically ~/.local/share/pipx on Linux/Unix, ~/.local/pipx on MacOS and ~\pipx on Windows. For compatibility reasons, if ~/.local/pipx on Linux, %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\pipx or ~\.local\pipx on Windows or ~/Library/Application Support/pipx on MacOS exists, it will be used as the default location instead. This can be overridden with the PIPX_HOME environment variable.

In case one of these fallback locations exist, we recommend either manually moving the pipx files to the new default location (see the Troubleshooting section of the docs), or setting the PIPX_HOME environment variable (discarding files existing in the fallback location).

As an example, you can install global apps accessible by all users on your system with the following command (on MacOS, Linux, and Windows WSL):

sudo PIPX_HOME=/opt/pipx PIPX_BIN_DIR=/usr/local/bin PIPX_MAN_DIR=/usr/local/share/man pipx install PACKAGE
# Example: $ sudo PIPX_HOME=/opt/pipx PIPX_BIN_DIR=/usr/local/bin PIPX_MAN_DIR=/usr/local/share/man pipx install cowsay

Note

After version 1.2.0, the default pipx paths have been moved from ~/.local/pipx to specific user data directories on each platform using platformdirs library

Old Path New Path
~/.local/pipx/.trash platformdirs.user_data_dir()/pipx/trash
~/.local/pipx/shared platformdirs.user_data_dir()/pipx/shared
~/.local/pipx/venvs platformdirs.user_data_dir()/pipx/venv
~/.local/pipx/.cache platformdirs.user_cache_dir()/pipx
~/.local/pipx/logs platformdirs.user_log_dir()/pipx/log

user_data_dir(), user_cache_dir() and user_log_dir() resolve to appropriate platform-specific user data, cache and log directories. See the platformdirs documentation for details.

This was reverted in 1.5.0 for Windows and MacOS. We heavily recommend not using these locations on Windows and MacOS anymore, due to multiple incompatibilities discovered with these locations, documented here.

Global installation

Pipx also comes with a --global argument which helps to execute actions in global scope which exposes the app to all system users. By default the global binary location is set to /usr/local/bin and can be overridden with the environment variable PIPX_GLOBAL_BIN_DIR. Default global manual page location is /usr/local/share/man. This can be overridden with environment variable PIPX_GLOBAL_MAN_DIR. Finally, default global virtual environment location is /opt/pipx, can be overridden with environment variable PIPX_GLOBAL_HOME. Make sure to run sudo pipx ensurepath --global if you intend to use this feature.

Note that the --global argument is not supported on Windows.

Upgrade pipx

On macOS:

brew update && brew upgrade pipx

On Ubuntu Linux:

sudo apt upgrade pipx

On Fedora Linux:

sudo dnf update pipx

On Windows:

scoop update pipx

Otherwise, upgrade via pip:

python3 -m pip install --user -U pipx

Note: Upgrading pipx from a pre-0.15.0.0 version to 0.15.0.0 or later

After upgrading to pipx 0.15.0.0 or above from a pre-0.15.0.0 version, you must re-install all packages to take advantage of the new persistent pipx metadata files introduced in the 0.15.0.0 release. These metadata files store pip specification values, injected packages, any custom pip arguments, and more in each main package's venv.

If you have no packages installed using the --spec option, and no venvs with injected packages, you can do this by running pipx reinstall-all.

If you have any packages installed using the --spec option or venvs with injected packages, you should reinstall packages manually using pipx uninstall-all, followed by pipx install and possibly pipx inject.

Shell Completion

You can easily get your shell's tab completions working by following instructions printed with this command:

pipx completions