Mac using default Python despite Anaconda install

Question

I am running Mac 10.9 Mavericks and have installed Anaconda. However, despite that, when I access python via terminal, I still get the default Apple version:

Python 2.7.5 (default, Sep  2 2013, 05:24:04)  [GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 5.0 (clang-500.0.68)] on darwin 

My .bash_profile is this:

export PATH="$HOME/anaconda/bin:$PATH"  MONGO_PATH=/usr/local/mongodb/bin SQL_PATH=/usr/local/mysql  export PATH="/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH" 

Is there anything I can do to use the Anaconda version of Python? At a loss at the moment.

Thank you

Answer 1

The first matching executable is the one that is run. From what I can gather you are concatenating your PATH variable in such a way that:

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin 

comes before:

$HOME/anaconda/bin 

So make sure that the anaconda directory is the first one, meaning that it will have precedence:

export PATH="$HOME/anaconda/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH" 

Answer 2

If your default shell is sh (or possibly anything but bash) you won't be able to access your Anaconda python. If this is your case:

1. Go to Terminal/Preferences
2. Find 'Shells open with:'
3. Click the button for 'Command (complete path)'
4. Type /bin/bash as path

Restart your terminal. When you type $ which python you should now see the anaconda python. For me it was /Users/myname/anaconda3/bin/python.

$ echo $PATH will also change now to show to correct path, with anaconda first:

/Users/myname/anaconda3/bin:/Users/myname/anaconda3/condabin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/opt/X11/bin

In Atom I had to add a shebang to the beginning of each script to set this as my preference: #!/Users/myname/anaconda3/bin/python