Additionally, Homebrew has a strict policy never to write stuff outside of the brew -prefix, so we don’t spam your system. The reasoning for this location is to preserve your modules between (minor) upgrades or re-installations of Python. Homebrew’s site-packages directory is first created (1) once any Homebrew formulae with Python bindings are installed, or (2) upon brew install python.

~/Library/Python/3.y/lib/python/site-packages.

So, for Python 3.y.z, you’ll find it at /usr/local/lib/python3.y/site-packages. $(brew -prefix )/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages Unversioned symlinks for python, python-config, pip etc.

pip3 points to Homebrew’s Python 3.y’s pip (if installed).

python3 points to Homebrew’s Python 3.y (if installed).

The executables are organised as follows: Manager such as pyenv if you require stability of minor or patch versions for virtual environments. Homebrew provides formulae for maintained releases of Python 3.y ( Python may be upgraded to a newer version at any time. Important: If you choose to use a Python which isn’t either of these two (system Python or brewed Python), the Homebrew team cannot support any breakage that may occur. A formula was provided until the end of 2019, at which point it was removed due to the Python 2 deprecation. Homebrew provides formulae to brew Python 3.y. Homebrew should work with any CPython and defaults to the macOS system Python.

See Python for Formula Authors for advice on writing formulae to install packages written in Python. This page describes how Python is handled in Homebrew for users.

Pip install for specific python version