05. Installing Anaconda

Installing Anaconda

Anaconda is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Follow the links below to get started:

  1. Download the installer from https://www.anaconda.com/download/. Choose the Python 3.7 or higher version, and the appropriate 64/32-bit installer. If you already have Python installed on your computer, this won't break anything. Instead, the default Python used by your scripts and programs will be the one that comes with Anaconda.

  2. Refer the installation instructions here

  3. Verify the installation here for your respective OS

After installation, you’re automatically in the default conda environment with all packages installed which you can see below. You can check out your own install by entering the following command into your terminal.

conda list

List of Applications Installed with Anaconda

As we read on the previous page, the following packages will get installed with Anaconda:

  • Anaconda Navigator - a GUI for managing your environments and packages
  • conda - a command-line utility
  • Python - The latest version of Python gets installed as an individual package.
  • Anaconda Prompt - [Only for Windows] a terminal where you can use the command-line interface to manage your environments and packages
  • A bunch of applications, such as Spyder. It is an IDE geared toward scientific development. In total, over 160 scientific packages and their dependencies are also installed.

To avoid errors later, it's best to update all the packages in the default environment. Open the Terminal/ Anaconda Prompt application. In the prompt, run the following commands:

conda upgrade conda
conda upgrade --all

and answer yes when asked if you want to install the packages. The packages that come with the initial install tend to be out of date, so updating them now will prevent future errors from out of date software.

Note: In the previous step, running conda upgrade conda should not be necessary because --all includes the conda package itself, but some users have encountered errors without it.

In the rest of this lesson, you'll learn to use commands in your Terminal/Anaconda Prompt. I highly suggest you start working with command-line utility first, then later use the GUI if you'd like. Once you get acquainted with the command-line utility, refer to the Starter Guide for Anaconda distribution (GUI).

Troubleshooting Resources

If you are facing difficulty in installing and running conda, refer to the FAQ - Should I add Anaconda to the macOS/Linux/Windows PATH?. Additionally, the following links might be useful:

  1. Linux/macOS -
  • If you are seeing the "conda command not found" and are using ZShell, you have to add export PATH="/Users/USERNAME/opt/anaconda/bin:$PATH" to your .zsh_config file.
  1. Windows users -

How to Install pip Package Manager

If you have successfully installed Anaconda/Miniconda, possibly you will have conda (and pip) automatically installed on your system. If pip is not there, we recommend you install the pip as well because you will be able to run pip commands only after installing it. 

# Check if pip is already installed, by running this command on Terminal/Anaconda Prompt
pip --version

# Once you have conda installed, run the command below on Terminal/Anaconda Prompt
conda install pip

Update Note

In newer version of Anaconda/Miniconda, both pip and conda package managers are included by default, so you do not need to install them separately.

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