How do I prevent Conda from activating the base environment by default?

Question

I recently installed anaconda2 on my Mac. By default Conda is configured to activate the base environment when I open a fresh terminal session.

I want access to the Conda commands (i.e. I want the path to Conda added to my $PATH which Conda does when initialised so that's fine).

However I don't ordinarily program in python, and I don't want Conda to activate the base environment by default.

When first executing conda init from the prompt, Conda adds the following to my .bash_profile:

# >>> conda initialize >>>
# !! Contents within this block are managed by 'conda init' !!
__conda_setup="$('/Users/geoff/anaconda2/bin/conda' 'shell.bash' 'hook' 2> /dev/null)"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    eval "$__conda_setup"
else
if [ -f "/Users/geoff/anaconda2/etc/profile.d/conda.sh" ]; then
    . "/Users/geoff/anaconda2/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"
else
    export PATH="/Users/geoff/anaconda2/bin:$PATH"
fi
# fi
unset __conda_setup
# <<< conda initialize <<<

If I comment out the whole block, then I can't activate any Conda environments.

I tried to comment out the whole block except for

export PATH="/Users/geoff/anaconda2/bin:$PATH"

But then when I started a new session and tried to activate an environment, I got this error message:

CommandNotFoundError: Your shell has not been properly configured to use 'conda activate'.

This question (and others like it) are helpful, but doesn't ultimately answer my question and is more suited for linux users.

To be clear, I'm not asking to remove the (base) from my $PS1 I'm asking for Conda not to activate base when I open a terminal session.

Answer 1

There're 3 ways to achieve this after conda 4.6. (The last method has the highest priority.)

1. Use sub-command conda config to change the setting.

   conda config --set auto_activate_base false
   

2. In fact, the former conda config sub-command is changing configuration file .condarc. We can modify .condarc directly. Add following content into .condarc under your home directory,

   # auto_activate_base (bool)
   #   Automatically activate the base environment during shell
   #   initialization. for `conda init`
   auto_activate_base: false
   

3. Set environment variable CONDA_AUTO_ACTIVATE_BASE in the shell's init file. (.bashrc for bash, .zshrc for zsh)

   export CONDA_AUTO_ACTIVATE_BASE=false
   

   To convert from the condarc file-based configuration parameter name to the environment variable parameter name, make the name all uppercase and prepend CONDA_. For example, conda’s always_yes configuration parameter can be specified using a CONDA_ALWAYS_YES environment variable.

   The environment settings take precedence over corresponding settings in .condarc file.

References

• The Conda Configuration Engine for Power Users
• Using the .condarc conda configuration file
• conda config --describe
• Conda 4.6 Release

Answer 2

I have conda 4.6 with a similar block of code that was added by conda. In my case, there's a conda configuration setting to disable the automatic base activation:

conda config --set auto_activate_base false

The first time you run it, it'll create a .condarc in your home directory with that setting to override the default.

This wouldn't de-clutter your .bash_profile but it's a cleaner solution without manual editing that section that conda manages.

Answer 3

The answer depends a little bit on the version of conda that you have installed. For versions of conda >= 4.4, it should be enough to deactivate the conda environment after the initialization, so add

conda deactivate

right underneath

# <<< conda initialize <<<

Answer 4

To disable auto activation of conda base environment in terminal:

conda config --set auto_activate_base false

To activate conda base environment:

conda activate