I spent most of the day yesterday searching for a clear answer for installing pip (package manager for Python). I can't find a good solution.

How do I install it?

You can install it through Homebrew on OS X. Why would you install Python with Homebrew?

The version of Python that ships with OS X is great for learning but it’s not good for development. The version shipped with OS X may be out of date from the official current Python release, which is considered the stable production version. (source)

Homebrew is something of a package manager for OS X. Find more details on the Homebrew page. Once Homebrew is installed, run the following to install the latest Python, Pip & Setuptools:

brew install python

easy_install pip

If you need admin privileges to run this, try:

sudo easy_install pip

$ sudo port install py27-pip

Then update your PATH to include py27-pip bin directory (you can add this in ~/.bash_profile PATH=/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:$PATH

pip will be available in new terminal window.

You should install Brew first:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Then brew install Python

brew install python

Then pip will work

The simplest solution is to follow the installation instruction from pip's home site.

Basically, this consists in:

• downloading get-pip.py. Be sure to do this by following a trusted link since you will have to run the script as root.
• call sudo python get-pip.py

The main advantage of that solution is that it install pip for the python version that has been used to run get-pip.py, which means that if you use the default OS X installation of python to run get-pip.py you will install pip for the python install from the system.

Most solutions that use a package manager (homebrew or macport) on OS X create a redundant installation of python in the environment of the package manager which can create inconsistencies in your system since, depending on what you are doing, you may call one installation of python instead of another.

To install or upgrade pip, download get-pip.py from http://www.pip-installer.org/en/latest/installing.html

Then run the following: sudo python get-pip.py

For example:

sudo python Desktop/get-pip.py 
Password:
  Downloading/unpacking pip
  Downloading pip-1.5.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl (1.2MB): 1.2MB downloaded
Installing collected packages: pip
Successfully installed pip
Cleaning up...

sudo pip install pymongo
Password:
Downloading/unpacking pymongo
  Downloading pymongo-2.6.3.tar.gz (324kB): 324kB downloaded
  Running setup.py (path:/private/var/folders/0c/jb79t3bx7cz6h7p71ydhwb_m0000gn/T/pip_build_goker/pymongo/setup.py) egg_info for package pymongo

Installing collected packages: pymongo
...

Download this file: get-pip.py

Then simply type

sudo python get-pip.py

Make sure you are on the same directory as get-pip.py or you supply the correct path for that file.

For details, you can visit: http://pip.readthedocs.org/en/latest/installing.html

or, http://thegauraw.tumblr.com/post/47601704154/how-to-install-pip-in-both-windows-ubuntu-easiest-way

pip is available on OS X via easy_install.
Open a terminal and type:

sudo easy_install pip

When prompted for a password enter your normal login password.
After the installation has completed you should be able to use pip as expected.

note: this works for other python packages too

Installing a separate copy of Python is a popular option, even though Python already comes with MacOS. You take on the responsibility to make sure you're using the copy of Python you intend. But, the benefits are having the latest Python release and some protection from hosing your system if things go badly wrong.

To install Python using HomeBrew:

brew update
brew install python # or brew install python3

Now confirm that we're working with our newly installed Python:

ls -lh `which python`

...should show a symbolic link to a path with "Cellar" in it like:

lrwxr-xr-x  1 chris  admin    35B Dec  2 13:40 /usr/local/bin/python -> ../Cellar/python/2.7.8_2/bin/python

Pip should be installed along with Python. You might want to upgrade it by typing:

pip install --upgrade pip

Now you're ready to install any of the 50,000+ packages on PyPI.

Other Notes

Formerly, I've used get-pip.py to install pip. But, the docs warn that get-pip.py does not coordinate with package managers and may leave your system in an inconsistent state. Anyway, there's no need, given that pip is now included with Python as of 2.7.9.

Note that pip isn't the only package manager for Python. There's also easy_install. It's no good to mix the two, so don't do it.

Finally, if you have both Python 2 and 3 installed, pip will point to whichever Python you installed last. Get in the habit of explicitly using either pip2 or pip3, so you're sure which Python is getting the new library.

Happy hacking!

On Mac:

1. Install easy_install

   curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/ez_setup.py -o - | sudo python
   

2. Install pip

   sudo easy_install pip
   

3. Now, you could install external modules. For example

   pip install regex   # This is only an example for installing other modules
   

Download python setup tools from the below website:

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools

Use the tar file.

Once you download, go to the downloaded folder and run

python setup.py install

Once you do that,you will have easy_install.

Use the below then to install pip:

sudo easy_install pip

⚡️ TL;DR — One line solution.

All you have to do is:

sudo easy_install pip

I made a gif, coz. why not?

Details:

⚡️ OK, I read the solutions given above, but here's an EASY solution to install pip.

MacOS comes with Python installed. But to make sure that you have Python installed open the terminal and run the following command.

python --version

If this command returns a version number that means Python exists. Which also means that you already have access to easy_install considering you are using macOS/OSX.

ℹ️ Now, all you have to do is run the following command.

sudo easy_install pip

After that, pip will be installed and you'll be able to use it for installing other packages.

Let me know if you have any problems installing pip this way.

Cheers!

P.S. I ended up blogging a post about it. QuickTip: How Do I Install pip on macOS or OS X?

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned this - since 2013, python itself is capable of installing pip, no external commands (and no internet connection) required.

sudo python -m ensurepip

This will create a similar install to what easy_install would.

I recommend Anaconda to you. It`s the leading open data science platform powered by Python. There are many basic packages installed.

NEW 2016 December: This worked for me on OS X v10.11 (El Capitan):

Mac comes with python 2, but not with pip.

Requirements

homebrew

Steps:

1. curl -O https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py

2. sudo python get-pip.py

With this I got these errors (but I've solved them in step 3):

The directory '/Users/myuser/Library/Caches/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.

The directory '/Users/myuser/Library/Caches/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. Check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.

3. pip install --upgrade pip

Finally you can install an app like:

4. pip install couchapp

UPDATE: Python 3

If you install python 3, pip will be installed automatically.

brew install python3

You need only to upgrade pip, but before that you need create a virtual environment to work with Python 3. You can use a project folder or any folder:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip

Check the versions:

pip -V
python --version

To deactivate the environment:

$ deactivate

Install python3 first, then use pip3 to install packages.

brew install python

python3 will be installed, and pip is shipped with it. To use pip to install some package, run the following

pip3 install package

Notice it's pip3 because you want to use python3.

If you want "pip3" you can do the ff:

via brew: brew install python3

then you can execute

pip3 <command> [options]

For those who have both python2 & python3 installed, here's the solution:

python2.7 -m ensurepip --default-pip

Additionally, if you wanna install pip for python3.6:

wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
sudo python3.6 get-pip.py

Install without the need for sudo

If you want to install pip without the need for sudo, which is always frustrating when trying to install packages globally, install pip in your local folder /usr/local like this:

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py > get-pip.py
python get-pip.py --prefix=/usr/local/

and then:

pip install <package-of-choice> without sudo

On the recent version (from Yosemite or El Capitan I believe... at least from Sierra onward), you need to run brew postinstall python3 after brew install python3 if you use homebrew.

So,

brew install python3 # this only installs python
brew postinstall python3 # this installs pip

UPDATED - Homebrew version after 1.5

According to the official Homebrew page:

On 1st March 2018 the python formula will be upgraded to Python 3.x and a python@2 formula will be added for installing Python 2.7 (although this will be keg-only so neither python nor python2 will be added to the PATH by default without a manual brew link --force). We will maintain python2, python3 and python@3 aliases.

So to install Python 3, run the following command:

brew install python3

Then, the pip is installed automatically, and you can install any package by pip install <package>.

Somehow easy install doesn't work on my old mac (10.8). This solve my problem.

wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py

If you do not have wget, just open in browser https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py then save as get-pip.py