Installing Miniconda

This page contains basic Miniconda installation instructions for Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as a command-line quickstart installation guide.

On Windows, macOS, and Linux, it is best to install Miniconda for the local user, which does not require administrator permissions and is the most robust type of installation. However, if you need to, you can install Miniconda system wide, which does require administrator permissions.

Basic install instructions

Download the installer from the Anaconda website or by using your preferred command line interface:
Navigate to anaconda.com/download, register with Anaconda (if desired), scroll down past the Anaconda Distribution installers, and select the 64-bit Windows Miniconda installer.
(Recommended) Verify the integrity of your installer to ensure that it was not corrupted or tampered with during download.
To ensure that your downloaded installer has not been tampered with or corrupted, generate its SHA-256 hash value and compare it to the official hash provided in the archive.
1. Open PowerShell and run the following command:
  # Replace <INSTALLER_FILE> with the name of the downloaded installer file Get-FileHash .\Downloads\<INSTALLER_FILE> -Algorithm SHA256
  For example:
  Get-FileHash .\Downloads\Miniconda3-latest-Windows-x86_64.exe -Algorithm SHA256
2. Note the generated SHA-256 hash value from the output.
3. Visit repo.anaconda.com/miniconda to find the official SHA-256 hash for your installer.
4. Compare the hash values. If they match, the installer is safe to use.
For more information, see cryptographic hash verification in the official conda documentation.
Go to your Downloads folder (or Home folder if downloaded via CLI) and double-click the installer to launch.

To prevent permission errors, do not launch the installer from the Favorites folder.

If you encounter issues during installation, temporarily disable your anti-virus software during install, then re-enable it after the installation concludes. If you installed for All Users, uninstall Miniconda and re-install it for Just Me only.
Click Next and then agree to Anaconda’s Terms of Service (TOS) .
Select an installation option:
- Just Me (Recommended) - Install Miniconda for the current user account.
- All Users - Install Miniconda for all user accounts on the computer (requires Windows Administrator privileges).
Click Next.
Select a destination folder to install Miniconda, then click Next.
- The installation directory path cannot contain spaces or Unicode characters. For more information, see the FAQ.
- Do not install as Administrator unless admin privileges are required.
Customize your installation options:
- Create shortcuts - Selected by default. Creates Start Menu shortcuts for the Anaconda Prompt packages. Deselecting this option skips creating these shortcuts.
- Add Miniconda3 to my PATH environment variable - Adds the path that contains the conda binaries to your PATH environment variable.
Anaconda does not recommend selecting this option. The conda binaries path contains other package binaries, which are permanently added to your PATH environment variable, even if no conda environment is currently active. This makes it possible for other software to use these package files, which might lead to errors.

Unless you plan on installing and running multiple versions of Miniconda or Python, open Anaconda Prompt from the Start Menu to begin your environment management work.
- Register Miniconda3 as my default Python 3.12 - Selected by default. Registers the Python package in this install as the default Python for programs like VSCode, PyCharm, etc.
- Clear the package cache upon completion - Runs conda clean --all --force-pkgs-dirs after the install finishes. For more information on these commands, see the conda command documentation.
Click Install. The installation might take a few minutes to complete. Click Show details to view the packages being installed.
Click Next twice, then click Finish to close the installer.

For information on installing in silent mode, see the Quick command line install commands for examples or the Installing in silent mode section of Installing on Windows in the conda project documentation.

The graphical installer for macOS installs Miniconda into /opt/miniconda3 in your file system. If you want to install Miniconda into your Home directory or if you have multiple users on a system and want to manage your installation more carefully, Anaconda recommends the shell (or command line) installer.

Navigate to anaconda.com/download, register with Anaconda (if desired), scroll down past the Anaconda Distribution installers, and select the macOS Miniconda installer for your chip architecture.
(Optional) Anaconda recommends verifying the integrity of the installer after downloading it.
To ensure that your downloaded installer has not been tampered with or corrupted, generate its SHA-256 hash value and compare it to the official hash provided in the archive.
1. Open Terminal and run the following command:
  # Replace <FILE_NAME> with the path to your installer shasum -a 256 <FILE_NAME>
  For example:
  shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/Miniconda3-latest-MacOSX-arm64.pkg
2. Note the generated SHA-256 hash value from the output.
3. Visit repo.anaconda.com/miniconda to find the official SHA-256 hash for your installer.
4. Compare the hash values. If they match, the installer is safe to use.
For more information, see cryptographic hash verification in the official conda documentation.
Double-click the .pkg file.
View the Read Me instructions and click Continue.
Read through Anaconda’s Terms of Service (TOS) and click Continue, then click Agree to agree to the terms.
Choose an install location:
- Install for all users of this computer (Recommended) - Installs Miniconda into /opt/miniconda3 for all users of the computer.
- Install on a specific disk - Enables you to choose a different location to install Miniconda.
Click Install. When the installation finishes, open your terminal application.

You should see (base) in the command line prompt. This tells you that you’re in your base conda environment. To learn more about environments, see Environments.
Test your installation by running conda list. If conda has been installed correctly, a list of installed packages appears.

Quickstart install instructions

These command line instructions will get you set up quickly with the latest Miniconda installer. Follow the steps for your system to download and install Miniconda, then follow the steps in Verify your install above to verify your Miniconda installation.

These quick install commands run a silent install. If you run a silent install, you are accepting Anaconda’s Terms of Service (TOS) by default. Please make sure to review Anaconda’s full TOS here before proceeding with silent installations.

These three commands quickly and quietly download the latest 64-bit Windows installer, rename it to a shorter file name, perform a silent install, and then delete the installer:

curl https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-Windows-x86_64.exe -o .\miniconda.exe
start /wait "" .\miniconda.exe /S
del .\miniconda.exe

You can find older versions of the Windows installer at <https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda>.

For example, to download an older version of Miniconda for Python 3.12 for a 64-bit Windows computer, replace the curl command for the latest installer with the following curl command instead:

curl https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-py312_24.5.0-0-Windows-x86_64.exe -o .\miniconda.exe

After installing, open the “Anaconda Prompt (miniconda3)” program to use Miniconda3.

Getting Started

​Basic install instructions

​Quickstart install instructions

Basic install instructions

Quickstart install instructions