How to change default Python version?

Question

[updated for 2021]

(Regardless if you are on Mac, Linux, or Windows:)

If you are confused about how to start the latest version of python, on most platforms it is the case that python3 leaves your python2 installation intact (due to the above compatibility reasons); thus you can start python3 with the python3 command.

Historically...

The naming convention is that generally, most scripts will call python2 or python3 explicitly. This happened due to a need for backwards compatibility.

Even though technically python doesn't even guarantee backwards compatibility between minor versions, Python3 really breaks backwards compatibility. At the time, programs invoking 'python' were expecting python2 (which was the main version at the time). Extremely old systems may have programs and scripts which expect python=python2, and changing this would break those programs and scripts.

At the time this answer was written, OP should not have changed this due to maintaining compatibility for old scripts.

Circa year 2021...

Nowadays, many years after the python2->python3 transition, most software explicitly refers to python2 or python3 (at least on Linux). For example, they might call #!/usr/bin/env python2 or #!/usr/bin/env python3. This has for example (python-is-python3-package) freed up the python command to be settable to a user default, but it really depends on the operating system.

The prescription for how distributions should handle the python command was written up in 2011 as PEP 394 -- The "python" Command on Unix-Like Systems. It was last updated in June 2019.

Basically if you are writing a library, you should use the most specific version(s) of python you can use. Otherwise as an end user, you should feel free to rename this for your own personal use (though your OS or distribution may not make that easy).

Shell alias:

You could, however, make a custom alias in your shell. The way you do so depends on the shell, but perhaps you could do alias py=python3, and put it in your shell startup file. This will only work on your local computer (as it should), and is somewhat unnecessary compared to just typing it out (unless you invoke the command constantly).

Confused users should not try to create aliases or virtual environments or similar that make python execute python3; this is poor form.This is acceptable nowadays, but PEP 394 suggests encouraging users to use a virtualenv instead.

Different 3.* versions, or 2.* versions:

In the extremely unlikely case that if someone comes to this question with two python3 versions e.g. 3.1 vs 3.2, and you are confused that you have somehow installed two versions of python, this is possibly because you have done manual and/or manual installations. You can use your OS's standard package/program install/uninstall/management facilities to help track things down, and perhaps (unless you are doing dev work that surprisingly is impacted by the few backwards-incompatible changes between minor versions) delete the old version (or do make uninstall if you did a manual installation). If you require two versions, then reconfigure your $PATH variable so the 'default' version you want is in front; or if you are using most Linux distros, the command you are looking for is sudo update-alternatives. Make sure any programs you run which need access to the older versions may be properly invoked by their calling environment or shell (by setting up the var PATH in that environment).

A bit about $PATH

sidenote: To elaborate a bit on PATH: the usual ways that programs are selected is via the PATH (echo $PATH on Linux and Mac) environment variable. You can always run a program with the full path e.g. /usr/bin/🔳 some args, or cd /usr/bin then ./🔳 some args (replace blank with the 'echo' program I mentioned above for example), but otherwise typing 🔳 some args has no meaning without PATH env variable which declares the directories we implicitly may search-then-execute files from (if /usr/bin was not in PATH, then it would say 🔳: command not found). The first matching command in the first directory is the one which is executed (the which command on Linux and Mac will tell you which sub-path this is). Usually it is (e.g. on Linux, but similar on Mac) something like /usr/bin/python which is a symlink to other symlinks to the final version somewhere, e.g.:

% echo $PATH
/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin

% which python
/usr/bin/python
% which python2
/usr/bin/python2
% ls -l /usr/bin/python
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Mar  4  2019 /usr/bin/python -> python2*
% ls -l /usr/bin/python2  
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Mar  4  2019 /usr/bin/python2 -> python2.7*
% ls -l /usr/bin/python2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3689352 Oct 10  2019 /usr/bin/python2.7*

% which python3         
/usr/bin/python3
% ls -l /usr/bin/python3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Mar 26  2019 /usr/bin/python3 -> python3.7*
% ls -l /usr/bin/python3.7
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4877888 Apr  2  2019 /usr/bin/python3.7*

% ls -l /usr/bin/python*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       7 Mar  4  2019 /usr/bin/python -> python2*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       9 Mar  4  2019 /usr/bin/python2 -> python2.7*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3689352 Oct 10  2019 /usr/bin/python2.7*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       9 Mar 26  2019 /usr/bin/python3 -> python3.7*
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4877888 Apr  2  2019 /usr/bin/python3.7*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      33 Apr  2  2019 /usr/bin/python3.7-config -> x86_64-linux-gnu-python3.7-config*
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4877888 Apr  2  2019 /usr/bin/python3.7m*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      34 Apr  2  2019 /usr/bin/python3.7m-config -> x86_64-linux-gnu-python3.7m-config*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      16 Mar 26  2019 /usr/bin/python3-config -> python3.7-config*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      10 Mar 26  2019 /usr/bin/python3m -> python3.7m*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      17 Mar 26  2019 /usr/bin/python3m-config -> python3.7m-config*

sidenote2: (In the rarer case a python program invokes a sub-program with the subprocess module, to specify which program to run, one can modify the paths of subprocesses with sys.path from the sys module or the PYTHONPATH environment variable set on the parent, or specifying the full path... but since the path is inherited by child processes this is not remotely likely an issue.)

Check the location of python 3

$ which python3
/usr/local/bin/python3

Write alias in bash_profile

vi ~/.bash_profile  
alias python='/usr/local/bin/python3'

Reload bash_profile

source ~/.bash_profile

Confirm python command

$ python --version
Python 3.6.5

On Mac OS X using the python.org installer as you apparently have, you need to invoke Python 3 with python3, not python. That is currently reserved for Python 2 versions. You could also use python3.2 to specifically invoke that version.

$ which python
/usr/bin/python
$ which python3
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.2/bin/python3
$ cd /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.2/bin/
$ ls -l
total 384
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin      8 Apr 28 15:51 2to3@ -> 2to3-3.2
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin    140 Feb 20 11:14 2to3-3.2*
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin      7 Apr 28 15:51 idle3@ -> idle3.2
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin    138 Feb 20 11:14 idle3.2*
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin      8 Apr 28 15:51 pydoc3@ -> pydoc3.2
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin    123 Feb 20 11:14 pydoc3.2*
-rwxrwxr-x  2 root  admin  25624 Feb 20 11:14 python3*
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin     12 Apr 28 15:51 python3-32@ -> python3.2-32
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin     16 Apr 28 15:51 python3-config@ -> python3.2-config
-rwxrwxr-x  2 root  admin  25624 Feb 20 11:14 python3.2*
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin  13964 Feb 20 11:14 python3.2-32*
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin     17 Apr 28 15:51 python3.2-config@ -> python3.2m-config
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin  25784 Feb 20 11:14 python3.2m*
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin   1865 Feb 20 11:14 python3.2m-config*
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin     10 Apr 28 15:51 pythonw3@ -> pythonw3.2
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin     13 Apr 28 15:51 pythonw3-32@ -> pythonw3.2-32
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin  25624 Feb 20 11:14 pythonw3.2*
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin  13964 Feb 20 11:14 pythonw3.2-32*

If you also installed a Python 2 from python.org, it would have a similar framework bin directory with no overlapping file names (except for 2to3).

$ open /Applications/Python\ 2.7/Update\ Shell\ Profile.command
$ sh -l
$ echo $PATH
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.2/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin
$ which python3
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.2/bin/python3
$ which python
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python
$ cd /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin
$ ls -l
total 288
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin    150 Jul  3  2010 2to3*
lrwxr-x---  1 root  admin      7 Nov  8 23:14 idle@ -> idle2.7
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin    138 Jul  3  2010 idle2.7*
lrwxr-x---  1 root  admin      8 Nov  8 23:14 pydoc@ -> pydoc2.7
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin    123 Jul  3  2010 pydoc2.7*
lrwxr-x---  1 root  admin      9 Nov  8 23:14 python@ -> python2.7
lrwxr-x---  1 root  admin     16 Nov  8 23:14 python-config@ -> python2.7-config
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin  33764 Jul  3  2010 python2.7*
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin   1663 Jul  3  2010 python2.7-config*
lrwxr-x---  1 root  admin     10 Nov  8 23:14 pythonw@ -> pythonw2.7
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin  33764 Jul  3  2010 pythonw2.7*
lrwxr-x---  1 root  admin     11 Nov  8 23:14 smtpd.py@ -> smtpd2.7.py
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin  18272 Jul  3  2010 smtpd2.7.py*

Old question, but alternatively:

virtualenv --python=python3.5 .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Do right thing, do thing right!

--->Zero Open your terminal,

--Firstly input python -V, It likely shows:

Python 2.7.10

-Secondly input python3 -V, It likely shows:

Python 3.7.2

--Thirdly input where python or which python, It likely shows:

/usr/bin/python

---Fourthly input where python3 or which python3, It likely shows:

/usr/local/bin/python3

--Fifthly add the following line at the bottom of your PATH environment variable file in ~/.profile file or ~/.bash_profile under Bash or ~/.zshrc under zsh.

alias python='/usr/local/bin/python3'

OR

alias python=python3

-Sixthly input source ~/.bash_profile under Bash or source ~/.zshrc under zsh.

--Seventhly Quit the terminal.

---Eighthly Open your terminal, and input python -V, It likely shows:

Python 3.7.2

I had done successfully try it.

Others, the ~/.bash_profile under zsh is not that ~/.bash_profile.

The PATH environment variable under zsh instead ~/.profile (or ~/.bash_file) via ~/.zshrc.

Help you guys!

Change the "default" Python by putting it ahead of the system Python on your path, for instance:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

Set Python 3.5 with higher priority

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python python /usr/bin/python2.7 1
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python python /usr/bin/python3.5 2

Check the result

sudo update-alternatives --config python
python -V