How can I get a list of locally installed Python modules?

Question

I would like to get a list of Python modules, which are in my Python installation (UNIX server).

How can you get a list of Python modules installed in your computer?

Answer 1

Warning: Adam Matan discourages this use in pip > 10.0. Also, read @sinoroc's comment below

This was inspired by Adam Matan's answer (the accepted one):

import tabulate
try:
  from pip import get_installed_distributions
except:
  from pip._internal.utils.misc import get_installed_distributions

tabpackages = []
for _, package in sorted([('%s %s' % (i.location, i.key), i) for i in get_installed_distributions()]):
  tabpackages.append([package.location, package.key, package.version])

print(tabulate.tabulate(tabpackages))

which then prints out a table in the form of

19:33 pi@rpi-v3 [iot-wifi-2] ~/python$ python installed_packages.py
-------------------------------------------  --------------  ------
/home/pi/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages  enum-compat     0.0.2
/home/pi/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages  enum34          1.1.6
/home/pi/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages  pexpect         4.2.1
/home/pi/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages  ptyprocess      0.5.2
/home/pi/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages  pygatt          3.2.0
/home/pi/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages  pyserial        3.4
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages       bluepy          1.1.1
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages       click           6.7
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages       click-datetime  0.2
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages       construct       2.8.21
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages       pyaudio         0.2.11
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages       tabulate        0.8.2
-------------------------------------------  --------------  ------

which lets you then easily discern which packages you installed with and without sudo.

---

A note aside: I've noticed that when I install a packet once via sudo and once without, one takes precedence so that the other one isn't being listed (only one location is shown). I believe that only the one in the local directory is then listed. This could be improved.

Answer 2

In case you have an anaconda python distribution installed, you could also use

$conda list

in addition to solutions described above.

Answer 3

pip freeze does it all finding packages however one can simply write the following command to list all paths where python packages are.

>>> import site; site.getsitepackages()
['/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages']

Answer 4

There are many ideas, initially I am pondering on these two:

pip

cons: not always installed

help('modules')

cons: output to console; with broken modules (see ubuntu...) can segfault

I need an easy approach, using basic libraries and compatible with old python 2.x

And I see the light: listmodules.py

Hidden in the documentation source directory in 2.5 is a small script that lists all available modules for a Python installation.

Pros:

uses only imp, sys, os, re, time

designed to run on Python 1.5.2 and newer

the source code is really compact, so you can easy tinkering with it, for example to pass an exception list of buggy modules (don't try to import them)

Answer 5

Works Regardless of Pip Version

Run the following in your python editor or IPython:

import pkg_resources
installed_packages = {d.project_name: d.version for d in pkg_resources.working_set}
print(installed_packages)

Read other answers and pulled together this combo, which is quickest and easiest inside Python.

Find the specific Packages

Conveniently you can then get items from your dict easily, i.e.

installed_packages['pandas'] >> '1.16.4'

Answer 6

This solution is primary based on modules importlib and pkgutil and work with CPython 3.4 and CPython 3.5, but has no support for the CPython 2.

---

Explanation

1. sys.builtin_module_names - names all built-in modules (look my answer here)
2. pkgutil.iter_modules() - returns an information about all available modules
3. importlib.util.find_spec() - returns an information about importing module, if exists
4. BuiltinImporter - an importer for built-in modules (docs)
5. SourceFileLoader - an importer for a standard Python module (by default has extension *.py) (docs)
6. ExtensionFileLoader - an importer for modules as shared library (written on the C or C++)

---

Full code

import sys
import os
import shutil
import pkgutil
import importlib
import collections

if sys.version_info.major == 2:
    raise NotImplementedError('CPython 2 is not supported yet')


def main():

    # name this file (module)
    this_module_name = os.path.basename(__file__).rsplit('.')[0]

    # dict for loaders with their modules
    loaders = collections.OrderedDict()

    # names`s of build-in modules
    for module_name in sys.builtin_module_names:

        # find an information about a module by name
        module = importlib.util.find_spec(module_name)

        # add a key about a loader in the dict, if not exists yet
        if module.loader not in loaders:
            loaders[module.loader] = []

        # add a name and a location about imported module in the dict
        loaders[module.loader].append((module.name, module.origin))

    # all available non-build-in modules
    for module_name in pkgutil.iter_modules():

        # ignore this module
        if this_module_name == module_name[1]:
            continue

        # find an information about a module by name
        module = importlib.util.find_spec(module_name[1])

        # add a key about a loader in the dict, if not exists yet
        loader = type(module.loader)
        if loader not in loaders:
            loaders[loader] = []

        # add a name and a location about imported module in the dict
        loaders[loader].append((module.name, module.origin))

    # pretty print
    line = '-' * shutil.get_terminal_size().columns
    for loader, modules in loaders.items():
        print('{0}\n{1}: {2}\n{0}'.format(line, len(modules), loader))
        for module in modules:
            print('{0:30} | {1}'.format(module[0], module[1]))


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

---

Usage

For the CPython3.5 (truncated)

$ python3.5 python_modules_info.py 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
30: <class '_frozen_importlib.BuiltinImporter'>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_ast                           | built-in
_codecs                        | built-in
_collections                   | built-in
_functools                     | built-in
_imp                           | None
_io                            | built-in
_locale                        | built-in
_operator                      | built-in
_signal                        | built-in
_sre                           | built-in
_stat                          | built-in
_string                        | built-in
_symtable                      | built-in
_thread                        | built-in
(****************************truncated*******************************)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
227: <class '_frozen_importlib_external.SourceFileLoader'>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
__future__                     | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/__future__.py
_bootlocale                    | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/_bootlocale.py
_collections_abc               | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/_collections_abc.py
_compat_pickle                 | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/_compat_pickle.py
_compression                   | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/_compression.py
_dummy_thread                  | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/_dummy_thread.py
_markupbase                    | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/_markupbase.py
_osx_support                   | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/_osx_support.py
_pydecimal                     | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/_pydecimal.py
_pyio                          | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/_pyio.py
_sitebuiltins                  | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/_sitebuiltins.py
(****************************truncated*******************************)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
64: <class '_frozen_importlib_external.ExtensionFileLoader'>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_bisect                        | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/lib-dynload/_bisect.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_bz2                           | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/lib-dynload/_bz2.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_codecs_cn                     | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/lib-dynload/_codecs_cn.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_codecs_hk                     | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/lib-dynload/_codecs_hk.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_codecs_iso2022                | /usr/local/lib/python3.5/lib-dynload/_codecs_iso2022.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
(****************************truncated*******************************)

For the CPython3.4 (truncated)

$ python3.4 python_modules_info.py
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
54: <class '_frozen_importlib.BuiltinImporter'>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_ast                           | built-in
_bisect                        | built-in
_codecs                        | built-in
_collections                   | built-in
_datetime                      | built-in
_elementtree                   | built-in
_functools                     | built-in
_heapq                         | built-in
_imp                           | None
_io                            | built-in
_locale                        | built-in
_md5                           | built-in
_operator                      | built-in
_pickle                        | built-in
_posixsubprocess               | built-in
_random                        | built-in
(****************************truncated*******************************)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
246: <class '_frozen_importlib.SourceFileLoader'>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
__future__                     | /usr/lib/python3.4/__future__.py
_bootlocale                    | /usr/lib/python3.4/_bootlocale.py
_collections_abc               | /usr/lib/python3.4/_collections_abc.py
_compat_pickle                 | /usr/lib/python3.4/_compat_pickle.py
_dummy_thread                  | /usr/lib/python3.4/_dummy_thread.py
_markupbase                    | /usr/lib/python3.4/_markupbase.py
_osx_support                   | /usr/lib/python3.4/_osx_support.py
_pyio                          | /usr/lib/python3.4/_pyio.py
(****************************truncated*******************************)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
44: <class '_frozen_importlib.ExtensionFileLoader'>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_bz2                           | /usr/lib/python3.4/lib-dynload/_bz2.cpython-34m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_codecs_cn                     | /usr/lib/python3.4/lib-dynload/_codecs_cn.cpython-34m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_codecs_hk                     | /usr/lib/python3.4/lib-dynload/_codecs_hk.cpython-34m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_codecs_iso2022                | /usr/lib/python3.4/lib-dynload/_codecs_iso2022.cpython-34m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_codecs_jp                     | /usr/lib/python3.4/lib-dynload/_codecs_jp.cpython-34m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_codecs_kr                     | /usr/lib/python3.4/lib-dynload/_codecs_kr.cpython-34m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_codecs_tw                     | /usr/lib/python3.4/lib-dynload/_codecs_tw.cpython-34m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
_crypt                         | /usr/lib/python3.4/lib-dynload/_crypt.cpython-34m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
(****************************truncated*******************************)