How do I find the location of my Python site-packages directory

Question

How do I find the location of my site-packages directory?

Answer 1

There are two types of site-packages directories, global and per user.

1. Global site-packages ("dist-packages") directories are listed in sys.path when you run:

   python -m site
   

   For a more concise list run getsitepackages from the site module in Python code:

   python -c 'import site; print(site.getsitepackages())'
   

   Note: With virtualenvs getsitepackages is not available, sys.path from above will list the virtualenv's site-packages directory correctly, though. In Python 3, you may use the sysconfig module instead:

   python3 -c 'import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_paths()["purelib"])'
   

2. The per user site-packages directory (PEP 370) is where Python installs your local packages:

   python -m site --user-site
   

   If this points to a non-existing directory check the exit status of Python and see python -m site --help for explanations.

   Hint: Running pip list --user or pip freeze --user gives you a list of all installed per user site-packages.

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Practical Tips

• <package>.__path__ lets you identify the location(s) of a specific package: (details)

  $ python -c "import setuptools as _; print(_.__path__)"
  ['/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/setuptools']
  

• <module>.__file__ lets you identify the location of a specific module: (difference)

  $ python3 -c "import os as _; print(_.__file__)"
  /usr/lib/python3.6/os.py
  

• Run pip show <package> to show Debian-style package information:

  $ pip show pytest
  Name: pytest
  Version: 3.8.2
  Summary: pytest: simple powerful testing with Python
  Home-page: https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/
  Author: Holger Krekel, Bruno Oliveira, Ronny Pfannschmidt, Floris Bruynooghe, Brianna Laugher, Florian Bruhin and others
  Author-email: None
  License: MIT license
  Location: /home/peter/.local/lib/python3.4/site-packages
  Requires: more-itertools, atomicwrites, setuptools, attrs, pathlib2, six, py, pluggy

Answer 2

You can find the location of Python site-packages directory by using the site module in the following way −

>>> import site
>>> site.getsitepackages()
['/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages']

If you want the per user site packages directory, then run the following code in your shell −

$ python -m site --user-site

Answer 3

Configuring Python to use additional locations for site-packages , "A path configuration file is a file whose name has the form name.pth and exists in one of the four [root@home]$ echo "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/" of the add-on so that it properly goes into the site-packages dir. So Python will find any packages that have been installed to those locations. How sys.path gets populated. As the docs explain, sys.path is populated using the current working directory, followed by directories listed in your PYTHONPATH environment variable, followed by installation-dependent default paths, which are controlled by the site module.