How to install dlib for python on mac?

Question

I'm getting an error when trying to install dlib on Python 3.7 on macOS with

pip3 install dlib

I have installed CMake, so that is not the problem.
I'm getting these error messages:

Failed building wheel for dlib

and

Command "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin/python3.7 -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/private/var/folders/j2/nvk5521j2vn9s1w95_0vlwkm0000gn/T/pip-install-ls2e_3mr/dlib/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /private/var/folders/j2/nvk5521j2vn9s1w95_0vlwkm0000gn/T/pip-record-hy3hu262/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile" 
failed with error code 1 in /private/var/folders/j2/nvk5521j2vn9s1w95_0vlwkm0000gn/T/pip-install-ls2e_3mr/dlib/ 

at the end in red. The reason I need dlib is to install face_recognition.

Answer 1

I think there's more to the error message and it's probably related to CMake, either it's not installed properly or it's not compatible with the pip3 install dlib.

I suggest using Homebrew to install Python3 (which includes pip3) and CMake. Homebrew manages the installation of packages, tools, libraries that might depend on system-related tools, paths, etc. It also prevents you from having to use sudo to install stuff on your system.

1. Install Homebrew

   • See the "Install Homebrew" section of https://brew.sh/
   • Basically:

     $ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
     

2. Install Python3 (and pip3) using Homebrew

   • See https://docs.brew.sh/Homebrew-and-Python
   • See Homebrew's formula for the latest Python3 (python3.7, python3.8, python3.9)
   • Basically do one of the following:

     $ brew install [email protected]  # or [email protected] or [email protected]
     $ brew install python@3    # get whichever is the latest version
     

3. Check Python installation

   $ python3 -V
   $ python3 -m pip -V
   

4. Install CMake using Homebrew

   • See https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/cmake
   • Basically:

     $ brew install cmake
     

5. Check CMake installation

   $ brew info cmake
   $ cmake --version
   

6. Finally, install dlib with pip

   $ python3 -m pip install dlib
   

---

If you don't want to use Homebrew (for some reason), you can try installing CMake for Mac directly using the installers (dmg or tar.gz) from here: https://cmake.org/download/.

Answer 2

1. Install Homebrew from here

2. A bunch of dependencies are needed for dlib:

   brew install cmake
   brew install boost
   brew install boost-python
   brew install dlib
   pip3 install numpy
   pip3 install scipy
   pip3 install scikit-image
   pip3 install dlib
   

3. If this does not work, try:

   python3 -m pip install dlib
   

Answer 3

dlib is dependent on cmake so you need to install that first. You just need to run following commands on your terminal:

$ brew install cmake 
$ pip install cmake 
$ brew install dlib 
$ pip install dlib