How to List all virtual environments in Python

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# How to List all virtual environments in Python

If you use the native Python venv command to create virtual environments or the virtualenv package, you can list the virtual environments by running a find command that looks for Python installations.

For example, if you are on Linux, you can use the following command.

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# For Linux
locate -b '\activate' | grep "/home"

If you are on macOS, you can use the following command.

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# For macOS
find $HOME -name "*activate" -type f

The following command works on both Linux and macOS.

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# For macOS and Linux
find ~ -d -name "site-packages" 2>/dev/null

The command looks for directories under $HOME that are named site-packages.

The venv module places its pip-installed modules in a folder named site-packages.

On macOS and Linux, you can also use the following command which finds all symlinks to the Python binary.

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# For macOS and Linux
find ~ -type l -name python

If you are on macOS, you can also use the mdfind command.

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# For macOS
mdfind -name activate | egrep /bin/activate$|  xargs -o egrep -l nondestructive 2>/dev/null | xargs -L 1 dirname | xargs -L 1 dirname

# List all virtual environments created by Conda

If you need to list all virtual environments that were created using conda, use the conda info --envs command.

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conda info --envs

list all virtual environments created by anaconda

You can also use the conda env list command.

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conda env list

using conda env list command

Both commands list all virtual environments created by conda.

# List all virtual environments created by `virtualenvwrapper`

If you need to list all virtual environments that were created by the virtualenvwrapper module, use the lsvirtualenv command.

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lsvirtualenv -b

The -b flag stands for brief mode and disables the verbose output.

If you want to run the command in long mode, use the -l flag.

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lsvirtualenv -l

Note that the command only lists the virtual environments that were created by virtualenvwrapper (with the mkvirtualenv command).

The environment variables that were created using the mkvirtualenv command are usually all stored in ~/.virtualenvs by default.

In order to use the lsvirtualenv, you have to have the virtualenvwrapper module installed as shown in this section of the docs.

You can also use the workon command without passing it any arguments if you use the virtualenvwrapper module.

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workon

The workon command is used to list or change the working virtual environments.

If no environment name is given, the command prints the available virtual environments to stdout.

# Additional Resources

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How to List all virtual environments in Python

# Table of Contents