Methods to Update Python on Mac
In this tutorial, we will discuss different methods to update Python on Mac. We will also discuss how to install the latest version of Python 3 or Python 2 on Mac.
Although the easiest way to update or install the latest version of Python on Mac is by using Python’s official website, we will have to check for future updates manually by checking the site again and again.
Therefore another way to update Python to the latest version is by using a single command. And we can easily update Python on macOS using Homebrew.
Update Python on Mac Using Homebrew
Homebrew is an open-source package manager software for macOS and Linux. It helps in installing and updating the software through the terminal. If Homebrew is not installed on your Mac, you can install it from here.
Once we have Homebrew, we can easily install Python on macOS using the following command on the terminal.
brew install python3
We can also update the Python 3 version from 3.x to 3.y using the following command on the terminal.
brew update && brew upgrade python
Once Python 3 is installed, we can set is as default to run the programs, using the following command.
cp /usr/local/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/python
But the problem with the above method is that it will be a problem to run some legacy code using Python 2 in the future. Therefore, we can use an alias that will point to the Python version installed by Homebrew to run the Python scripts.
echo "alias python=/usr/local/bin/python3.7" >> ~/.bashrc
In case we have to use Python 2 to run a program, we can do so by indicating the default macOS Python binary path /usr/bin/python/ at the start of the code file, as shown below.
#!/usr/bin/python/
print("hello world!")
Using the following command, we can also install Python 2 on macOS.
brew install python@2
Update Python Using Python Installer for macOS
Before updating or installing Python on Mac using the Python installer, the first step is to check the installed version of Python on Mac. We can check the versions of Python 2 and Python 3 installed on Mac using the following commands.
For Python 2:
python --version
For Python 3:
python3 --version
After checking the version, the next step is to check if any new version is available on the official website. We can download the installer and update or install the desired version using the Python installer.
We can confirm if the new version of Python is successfully installed or not by checking the Python version using the same above two commands.