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