Remove/uninstall all packages installed by pip in Python

# Remove/uninstall all packages installed by pip in Python

Use the pip uninstall -y -r <(pip freeze) command to remove all packages installed by pip.

The command uses pip freeze to get a list of the installed packages and uninstalls them without asking for confirmation.

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# 👇️ Optionally save the packages that are to be removed
pip freeze > to_remove.txt

# 👇️ Remove/uninstall all packages installed by pip
pip uninstall -y -r <(pip freeze)

The command uses pip freeze to get a list of the installed packages in requirements format and uninstalls the packages.

The -y option is short for -yes and means that pip should not ask for confirmation when uninstalling.

The -r option is short for --requirement and uninstalls all the packages in the given requirements file.

If you need to install the packages again, use the pip install -r command.

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pip install -r to_remove.txt

If you get an error message that setuptools is not installed, e.g. No module named 'pkg_resources', run the following command.

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# 👇️ For Linux or MacOS
python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel

# 👇️ Windows
py -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel

# 👇️ Try upgrading pip
pip install --upgrade pip setuptools
pip3 install --upgrade pip setuptools

You can also store the installed packages in a file and uninstall them directly from the file.

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# 👇️ Store the installed packages in a file called reqs.txt
pip freeze > reqs.txt

# 👇️ Uninstall packages 1 by 1
pip uninstall -r reqs.txt

# 👇️ Uninstall all packages without confirmation required
pip uninstall -r reqs.txt -y

I used the name reqs.txt because you might not want to override the contents of your existing requirements.txt (if you already have one).

# Remove/uninstall all packages installed by pip using xargs

Alternatively, you can use xargs to remove all packages installed by pip.

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# 👇️ Optionally save the packages that are to be removed
pip freeze > to_remove.txt

# 👇️ Remove/uninstall all packages installed by pip
pip freeze | xargs pip uninstall -y

The command uses pip freeze to get a list of the installed packages and then uses xargs to pass the packages as an argument to the pip uninstall command.

We then used the xargs command to pass the installed packages as an argument to the pip uninstall command.

The -y (yes) option makes it so pip doesn't ask for confirmation when uninstalling packages.

If you need to install the packages again, use the pip install -r command.

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pip install -r to_remove.txt

You might have to install pip, setuptools and wheel after running the command.

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# 👇️ For Linux or MacOS
python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel

# 👇️ Windows
py -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel

# 👇️ Try upgrading pip
pip install --upgrade pip setuptools
pip3 install --upgrade pip setuptools

# Recreate your virtual environment

Alternatively, you can simply recreate your virtual environment.

1. Deactivate your virtual environment.
2. Delete the folder of your virtual environment.
3. Create a new virtual environment.
4. Activate the new virtual environment.

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# 👇️ (optional) store the packages to be removed
pip freeze > to_remove.txt

# 👇️ deactivate
deactivate

# 👇️ Remove the old virtual environment folder: macOS and Linux
rm -rf venv

# 👇️ Remove the old virtual environment folder: Windows
rd /s /q "venv"

# 👇️ initialize a new virtual environment
python -m venv venv

# 👇️ Activate on Unix or MacOS
source venv/bin/activate

# 👇️ Activate on Windows (cmd.exe)
venv\Scripts\activate.bat

# 👇️ Activate on Windows (PowerShell)
venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

# 👇️ (optional) install the modules in your requirements.txt file
pip install -r requirements.txt

If running python -m venv venv doesn't work, try the following commands:

• python3 -m venv venv
• py -m venv venv

We used the deactivate command to deactivate the virtual environment, deleted the venv folder and created a new virtual environment.

Your virtual environment will use the version of Python that was used to create it.

Make sure to use the correct activation command depending on your operating system.

You might have to upgrade your pip version in the new virtual environment.

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pip install --upgrade pip

You can use the pip install -r requirements.txt command in the new virtual environment if you need to install any packages from a requirements file.

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

• Install a specific package version using conda (anaconda)
• How to Check if a Python package is installed
• How to force pip to reinstall a package in Python
• Pip install multiple requirements files in Python
• How to pip install a package Globally instead of Locally
• Pip install and uninstall in silent, non-interactive mode
• Pip install a specific version of a Python package
• Pip list all available versions of a Python package
• The purpose of pip's --no-cache-dir option
• Python argparse: Pass a List as command-line argument
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• OSError: [E050] Can't find model 'en_core_web_sm'
• ssl.SSLError: [SSL: WRONG_VERSION_NUMBER] wrong version number (_ssl.c:1002)
• _tkinter.TclError: no display name and no $DISPLAY environment variable
• Matplotlib is currently using agg, which is non-GUI backend