python location on mac osx

Question

[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] is the version of GCC that the Python(s) were built with, not the version of Python itself. That information should be on the previous line. For example:

# Apple-supplied Python 2.6 in OS X 10.6
$ /usr/bin/python
Python 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Jun 24 2010, 21:47:49) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> 

# python.org Python 2.7.2 (also built with newer gcc)
$ /usr/local/bin/python
Python 2.7.2 (v2.7.2:8527427914a2, Jun 11 2011, 15:22:34) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

Items in /usr/bin should always be or link to files supplied by Apple in OS X, unless someone has been ill-advisedly changing things there. To see exactly where the /usr/local/bin/python is linked to:

$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/python
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  68 Jul  5 10:05 /usr/local/bin/python@ -> ../../../Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python

In this case, that is typical for a python.org installed Python instance or it could be one built from source.

I found the easiest way to locate it, you can use

which python

it will show something like this:

/usr/bin/python

This one will solve all your problems not only for Mac but works on every basic shell -> Linux also:

If you have a Mac and you've installed python3 like most of us do :) (with brew install - ofc)

your file is located in:

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

How do you know? -> you can run this on every basic shell Run:

which python3

You should get:

/usr/local/bin/python3

Now this is a symbolic link, how do you know? Run:

ls -al /usr/local/bin/python3 

and you'll get:

/usr/local/bin/python3 -> /usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

which means that your

/usr/local/bin/python3 

is actually pointing to:

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

If, for some reason, your

/usr/local/bin/python3 

is not pointing to the place you want, which in our case:

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

just backup it:

cp /usr/local/bin/python3{,.orig} 

and run:

rm -rf /usr/local/bin/python3

now create a new symbolic link:

ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/python3 

and now your

/usr/local/bin/python3

is pointing to

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3 

Check it out by running:

ls -al /usr/local/bin/python3

On Mac OS X, it's in the Python framework in /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Resources.

Full path is:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Resources/Python.app/Contents/MacOS/Python

Btw it's easy to find out where you can find a specific binary: which Python will show you the path of your Python binary (which is probably the same as I posted above).

On High Sierra

which python

shows the default python but if you downloaded and installed the latest version from python.org you can find it by:

which python3.6

which on my machine shows

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/python3.6

installed with 'brew install python3', found it here