How to Fix ‘zsh: command not found: pip’

If you’re a software developer working with Python, you might have encountered the error zsh: command not found: pip in your terminal. This error occurs when the pip package manager is not properly installed or configured on your system. In this article, we’ll cover how to resolve this issue and provide some code snippets to help you along the way.

Why does this error occur?

The zsh: command not found: pip error occurs when the pip executable is not present in your system’s PATH variable, or when pip is not installed at all. This can happen if you’ve recently switched to using the Zsh shell or if you’ve installed Python without including the pip package manager.

Step 1: Verify pip installation

Before making any changes, let’s first verify if pip is installed on your system. Open your terminal and enter the following command:

pip3 -V

If you see the version number of pip, it means that pip is installed on your system, and you just need to add it to your PATH variable. If not, proceed to step 2 to install pip[^2^].

Step 2: Install pip

To install pip, download the get-pip.py script from the official Python website by navigating to https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py. Save the file to your computer, then open your terminal and navigate to the directory where you saved the get-pip.py script. Run the following command:

sudo python get-pip.py

This command will install pip on your system[^12^].

Step 3: Add pip to your PATH

After installing pip, you need to add it to your system’s PATH variable so that Zsh can locate the pip executable file[^12^]. To do this, open your terminal and enter the following command:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin

This command will add the /usr/local/bin directory, which contains the pip executable file, to your system’s PATH[^12^]. To make this change permanent, add the same line to your Zsh configuration file by opening it in your favorite text editor:

nano ~/.zshrc

Save and close the file, then reload your Zsh configuration by entering the following command:

source ~/.zshrc

Now, you should be able to use pip without encountering the zsh: command not found: pip error[^12^].

Step 4: Verify pip functionality

To ensure that pip is now working correctly, try installing a Python package, such as requests. Run the following command:

pip install requests

If the installation is successful, you have resolved the zsh: command not found: pip error.

Conclusion

By following these steps, you should have successfully resolved the zsh: command not found: pip error and added pip to your system’s PATH variable. Now you can use pip to manage your Python packages without any issues.

Remember to explore adjacent topics, such as shell scripting, to improve your Python development workflow and become a more efficient and effective developer[^12^]. Happy coding!