Using Pip to install packages to Anaconda Environm

Question

conda 4.2.13 MacOSX 10.12.1

I am trying to install packages from pip to a fresh environment (virtual) created using anaconda. In the Anaconda docs it says this is perfectly fine. It is done the same way as for virtualenv.

Activate the environment where you want to put the program, then pip install a program...

I created an empty environment in Ananconda like this:

conda create -n shrink_venv

Activate it:

source activate shrink_venv

I then can see in the terminal that I am working in my env (shrink_venv). Problem is coming up, when I try to install a package using pip:

(shrink_venv): pip install Pillow

Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): Pillow in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages

So I can see it thinks the requirement is satisfied from the system-wide package. So it seems the environment is not working correctly, definitely not like it said in the docs. Am I doing something wrong here?

Just a note, I know you can use conda install for the packages, but I have had an issue with Pillow from anaconda, so I wanted to get it from pip, and since the docs say that is fine.

Output of which -a pip:

/usr/local/bin/pip
/Users/my_user/anaconda/bin/pip

** UPDATE ** I see this is pretty common issue. What I have found is that the conda env doesn't play well with the PYTHONPATH. The system seems to always look in the PYTHONPATH locations even when you're using a conda environment. Now, I always run unset PYTHONPATH when using a conda environment, and it works much better. I'm on a mac.

Answer 1

All you have to do is open Anaconda Prompt and type

pip install package-name

It will automatically install to the anaconda environment without having to use

conda install package-name

Since some of the conda packages may lack support overtime it is required to install using pip and this is one way to do it

If you have pip installed in anaconda you can run the following in jupyter notebook or in your python shell that is linked to anaconda

pip.main(['install', 'package-name'])

Check your version of pip with pip.__version__. If it is version 10.x.x or above, then install your python package with this line of code

subprocess.check_call([sys.executable, '-m', 'pip', 'install', '--upgrade', 'package-name'])

In your jupyter notebook, you can install python packages through pip in a cell this way;

!pip install package-name

or you could use your python version associated with anaconda

!python3.6 -m pip install package-name