How To Install Pip On MacOS?

Python is very popular programming and scripting language. It provides useful modules and libraries but also there is a lot of popular 3rd party library. Pip is the command and tools used to install, update and remove 3rd party packages. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install pip and some useful information.

Check and Display Python Version

Before installing the pip we have to be sure that Python is installed. Also, the version of the Python is important because pip will be installed according to this Python version.

$ python --version

$ python3 --version

We can see that both PYthon2 and PYthon3 is installed. So we can use installation commands for both Python2 and Python3. The python2 version is Python2.7.16 and Python3 version is Python3.6.8 .

Install Pip with easy_install On MacOS

easy_install is a Python module bundled with setuptools which gives us the ability to download, build, install, and manage Python packages. Before pip easy_install was the standard package manager for the Python. We can install pip with the easy_install command like below.

$ sudo easy_install pip

If the pip is already installed we can also upgrade the existing pip installation with the easy_install like below. We will use the pip command because it installed already and provide the --upgrade option with the package name which is also pip.

$ sudo pip install --upgrade pip

Install Pip with get-pip.py On MacOS

get-pip.py is another way to install pip in MacOS. get-pip.py is a Python script that will simply download and install the Pip package for Python. First, we will download the get-pip.py script with the curl command. We will provide the URL with the -o option where we will set the name of the downloaded get-pip.py file name.

$ curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py

AND then we will call the get-pip.py with the Python interpreter. This will run the get-pip.py file Python codes which will simply install the pip for the macOS or OS X.

$ python get-pip.py

Install Pip with brew On MacOS

Homebrew is the package management tool for the macOS. We can use Homebrew in order to install Python and pip. pip is provided with the python package. We will use brew command with the install command like below.

$ brew install python

If there are problems related to the pip usage we may need to relink the python with the following command.

$ brew unlink python && brew link python

Check and Display Pip Version

We can check installed pip version with the -V or --version option like below.

$ pip -V
 
$ pip3 -V

We can see that Python2 pip version is pip 9.0.1 and Python3 pip version is pip 9.0.1 . They are the same version for both Python2 and Python3. This is because to prevent version conflicts and synchronize the feature development of the pip command for both Python versions.