How do I find the location of my Python site-packages directory?

How do I find the location of my site-packages directory?

There are two types of site-packages directories, global and per user.

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Global site-packages ("dist-packages") directories are listed in sys.path when you run:

python -m site

For a more concise list run getsitepackages from the site module in Python code:

python -c 'import site; print(site.getsitepackages())'

Caution: In virtual environments getsitepackages is not available with older versions of virtualenv, sys.path from above will list the virtualenv's site-packages directory correctly, though. In Python 3, you may use the sysconfig module instead:

python3 -c 'import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_paths()["purelib"])'

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The per user site-packages directory (PEP 370) is where Python installs your local packages:

python -m site --user-site

If this points to a non-existing directory check the exit status of Python and see python -m site --help for explanations.

Hint: Running pip list --user or pip freeze --user gives you a list of all installed per user site-packages.

Practical Tips

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.__path__ lets you identify the location(s) of a specific package: (details)

$ python -c "import setuptools as _; print(_.__path__)"
  ['/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/setuptools']

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.__file__ lets you identify the location of a specific module: (difference)

$ python3 -c "import os as _; print(_.__file__)"
  /usr/lib/python3.6/os.py

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Run pip show to show Debian-style package information:

$ pip show pytest
  Name: pytest
  Version: 3.8.2
  Summary: pytest: simple powerful testing with Python
  Home-page: https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/
  Author: Holger Krekel, Bruno Oliveira, Ronny Pfannschmidt, Floris Bruynooghe, Brianna Laugher, Florian Bruhin and others
  Author-email: None
  License: MIT license
  Location: /home/peter/.local/lib/python3.4/site-packages
  Requires: more-itertools, atomicwrites, setuptools, attrs, pathlib2, six, py, pluggy

Stack Overflow Q#122327, score: 1178