How to List Installed Python Packages (with/without Pip)

In this tutorial, you will learn how to list every Python packages installed in your environment, whether you are using pip, conda or pipenv package management systems for Python.

Follow this article for those interested in learning how to use pip to install and manage Python packages. For those interested in how to use the command prompt.

Cheatsheet on how to List Installed Packages in Python

How to List Installed Python Packages with Pip

List Installed Python Packages (pip list)

To view all the packages installed in a Python environment, use the pip list command.

$ pip list

Package                  Version
------------------------ ------------
advertools               0.13.2
pandas                      2.0.1
pip                              23.2.1
...

List Installed Python Packages (pip freeze)

To list the installed packages without including the package management tools such as pip and setuptools by using the pip freeze command.

$ pip freeze

The output will show installed packages that are not package management tools.

advertools==0.13.2
pandas==2.0.1

Difference Between pip list and pip freeze

The main difference between pip list and pip freeze is that pip freeze does not include packages used for package management, such as pip and setuptools.

For example, here are the outputs of pip list and pip freeze for the same Python environment.

Pip list

Package                  Version
------------------------ ------------
advertools               0.13.2
pandas                      2.0.1
pip                              23.2.1
...

Pip freeze

advertools==0.13.2
pandas==2.0.1

You can however, use the pip freeze –all flag to show all the versions including packages managers.

$ pip freeze --all

advertools==0.13.2
pandas==2.0.1
pip=23.2.1

The other big difference is that pip freeze can be used to create a requirements.txt file.

$ pip freeze > requirements.txt

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Here’s the official documentations for both commands:

• pip list – pip documentation v23.1.2
• pip freeze – pip documentation v23.1.2

Select the output format (pip list –format)

To select the output format, use the --format flag with the pip list command.

How to show the pip list output in columns

$ pip list --format columns

How to Show the pip list Output in the JSON format

$ pip list --format json

How to Show the pip list Output in the pip freeze format

$ pip list --format freeze

Pip list up-to-date packages (–uptodate)

To list only the up-to-date Python packages, use the pip list -u or --uptodate command flags.

$ pip list -u
$ pip list --uptodate

Pip list outdated packages (–outdated)

To list only the outdated Python packages, use the pip list --outdated or -o command flags.

$ pip list -o
$ pip list --outdated

Note that you cannot use the --outdated flag along with the freeze format.

ERROR: List format 'freeze' cannot be used with the --outdated option.

Pip list packages not required by other packages (–not-required)

To list only the Python packages that are not required by other packages, use the pip list --not-required command flags.

$ pip list --not-required

The --not-required flag is useful to know if it is safe to uninstall a package without breaking the dependencies for other packages.

How to List Installed Python Packages without Pip

It is possible that you are not using the pip Python package manager in your project. You could be using Anaconda or Pipenv for example.

How to List Installed Python Packages with Console

To list all the packages installed using pip from the Python Interpreter console, import the pkg_resources library.

import pkg_resources
packages = pkg_resources.working_set
packages_list = ["%s==%s" % (i.key, i.version) for i in packages]
print(packages_list)

To list all the packages installed without pip from the Python Interpreter console use the help("modules") function. Beware this function can take a long time and also risk infinite loops in some cases.

>>> help("modules")

How to List Installed Python Packages with Conda

To list all the packages installed using the Anaconda, use the conda list command in the Anaconda Navigator.

$ conda list

How to List Installed Python Packages with Pipenv

To list all the Python packages installed, including all dependencies, in a pipenv environment, used the pipenv lock -r command.

$ pipenv lock -r

Jean-Christophe Chouinard

SEO Strategist at Tripadvisor, ex- Seek (Melbourne, Australia). Specialized in technical SEO. Writer in Python, Information Retrieval, SEO and machine learning. Guest author at SearchEngineJournal, SearchEngineLand and OnCrawl.