Location of Python `pip` packages

The Problem

Where does Python’s pip install packages?

The Solution

The location of pip packages will vary between systems and projects based on the operating system, the installing user, and whether or not a virtual environment is in use. Different pip packages may be installed in different places on the same system. Therefore, the best way to find the location of a package is through pip’s show command.

pip show numpy

This command will display various information about the package, including its location on disk. For example, the below output shows a local user installation of numpy on a Linux system:

Location: /home/user/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages

To view the locations of all Python packages, you can use pip list -v. In the output below, different packages are installed locally and globally:

Package                      Version         Location                                                      Installer
---------------------------- --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- ---------
absl-py                      1.2.0           /home/user/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages                pip
accelerate                   0.12.0          /home/user/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages                pip
addict                       2.4.0           /home/user/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages                pip
aiocmd                       0.1.5           /usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages
aiofiles                     22.1.0          /usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages                             pip
aiohttp                      3.8.1           /home/user/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages                pip
aiorpcX                      0.22.1          /usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages
aiosignal                    1.2.0           /home/user/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages                pip