Borislav Hadzhiev
Wed Apr 20 2022ยท4 min read
Photo by Raychan
The Python "ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'bs4'" occurs when we forget
to install the beautifulsoup4
module before importing it or install it in an
incorrect environment. To solve the error, install the module by running the
pip install beautifulsoup4
command.
Open your terminal in your project's root directory and install the
beautifulsoup4
module.
# ๐๏ธ in a virtual environment or using Python 2 pip install beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ for python 3 (could also be pip3.10 depending on your version) pip3 install beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ if you get permissions error sudo pip3 install beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ if you don't have pip in your PATH environment variable python -m pip install beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ for python 3 (could also be pip3.10 depending on your version) python3 -m pip install beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ alternative for Ubuntu/Debian sudo apt-get install python3-bs4 # ๐๏ธ for Anaconda conda install -c anaconda beautifulsoup4
After you install the beautifulsoup4 package, try importing it like:
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup soup = BeautifulSoup("<p>Some<b>bad<i>HTML") print(soup.prettify())
The Python error "ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'bs4'" occurs for multiple reasons:
beautifulsoup4
package installed by running
pip install beautifulsoup4
.bs4.py
which would shadow the official module.bs4
which would shadow the imported variable.If the error persists, get your Python version and make sure you are installing the package using the correct Python version.
python --version
For example, my Python version is 3.10.4
, so I would install the
beautifulsoup4 package with pip3.10 install beautifulsoup4
.
pip3.10 install beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ if you get permissions error use pip3 (NOT pip3.X) sudo pip3 install beautifulsoup4
Notice that the version number corresponds to the version of pip
I'm using.
If the PATH for pip
is not set up on your machine, replace pip
with
python3 -m pip
:
# ๐๏ธ make sure to use your version of Python, e.g. 3.10 python3 -m pip install beautifulsoup4
If the "No module named 'bs4'" error persists, try restarting your IDE and development server / script.
You can check if you have the beautifulsoup4
package installed by running the
pip show beautifulsoup4
command.
# ๐๏ธ check if you have beautifulsoup4 installed pip3 show beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ if you don't have pip setup in PATH python3 -m pip show beautifulsoup4
The pip show beautifulsoup4
command will either state that the package is not
installed or show a bunch of information about the package, including the
location where the package is installed.
If the package is not installed, make sure your IDE is using the correct version of Python.
beautifulsoup4
package using the incorrect version or your IDE might be setup to use a different version.For example, In VSCode, you can press CTRL + Shift + P
or (โ
+ Shift
+ P
on Mac) to open the command palette.
Then type "Python select interpreter" in the field.
Then select the correct python version from the drop down menu.
If you are using a virtual environment, make sure you are installing
beautifulsoup4
in your virtual environment and not globally.
You can try creating a virtual environment if you don't already have one.
# ๐๏ธ use correct version of Python when creating VENV python3 -m venv venv # ๐๏ธ activate on Unix or MacOS source venv/bin/activate # ๐๏ธ activate on Windows (cmd.exe) venv\Scripts\activate.bat # ๐๏ธ activate on Windows (PowerShell) venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1 # ๐๏ธ install beautifulsoup4 in virtual environment pip install beautifulsoup4
Your virtual environment will use the version of Python that was used to create it.
bs4.py
because that would shadow the original beautifulsoup4
module.You also shouldn't be declaring a variable named bs4
as that would also shadow
the original module.
If the error is not resolved, try to uninstall the beautifulsoup4
package and
then install it.
# ๐๏ธ check if you have beautifulsoup4 installed pip3 show beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ if you don't have pip setup in PATH python3 -m pip show beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ uninstall beautifulsoup4 pip3 uninstall beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ if you don't have pip setup in PATH python3 -m pip uninstall beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ install beautifulsoup4 pip3 install beautifulsoup4 # ๐๏ธ if you don't have pip setup in PATH python3 -m pip install beautifulsoup4
Try restarting your IDE and development server / script.
You can also try to upgrade the version of the beautifulsoup4 package.
pip3 install beautifulsoup4 --upgrade # ๐๏ธ if you don't have pip setup in PATH python3 -m pip install beautifulsoup4 --upgrade
This one is for using using virtual environments (VENV) on Windows
:
This one is for using using virtual environments (VENV) on MacOS
and Linux
: