How to uninstall a package installed with pip install --user
here is a --user option for pip which can install a Python package per user:
pip install --user [python-package-name]I used this option to install a package on a server for which I do not have root access. What I need now is to uninstall the installed package on the current user. I tried to execute this command:
pip uninstall --user [python-package-name]But I got:
no such option: --userHow can I uninstall a package that I installed with pip install --user, other than manually finding and deleting the package?
Having tested this using Python 3.5 and pip 7.1.2 on Linux, the situation appears to be this:
- pip install --user some package installs to $HOME/.local, and uninstalling it does work using pip uninstall package.
- It is true whether or not some Pip packages are also installed system-wide at the same time.
- If the pip uninstall package is installed at both places, only the local one will be uninstalled. To uninstall the package system-wide using pip, first uninstall it locally, then run the same uninstall command again, with root privileges.
- In addition to the predefined user install directory, pip install --target somedir some package will install the package into somedir. There is no way to uninstall a package from such a place using pip. (But there is a somewhat old unmerged pull request on Github that implements pip uninstall --target.)
- Since the only places pip will ever uninstall from are system-wide and predefined user-local, you need to run pip uninstall as the respective user to uninstall from a given user's local install directory.