Conda User Cheat Sheet - Quick Start and Managing Environments

Oct 13, 2026

Upload by dawugda

Conda user cheat sheet covering essential commands for installing, updating, searching, and managing packages and environments across Anaconda/Miniconda setups. Includes quick-start guidance with environment creation, activation, and help usage via --help/-h, plus practical patterns for environment cloning, listing packages, and configuring channels in .condarc. Also covers removing environments or packages, installing via pip, and example workflows for locating specific Python versions and searching or overriding channels.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResumes

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time1 min

AccessFree to download

QUICK START

Managing environments

Managing Python

Managing packages

Removing packages or environments

CHANNELS AND PACKAGES

Conda user cheat sheet For full documentation of any command, type the command followed by--help. conda create--help TIP: Many options after two dashes (--) have shortcuts. conda create--help or conda create-h Managing conda and anaconda conda info Verify conda is installed, check version \# conda update conda Update conda package and environment manager to current version conda update andaconda Update the anaconda meta package (the library of packages ready to install with conda command) Managing environments conda info--envs or conda info-e Get a list of all my environments, active environment shown with * conda create--name snowflakes biopython Create an environment and install program(s) or conda create-n snowflakes biopython TIP: To avoid dependency conﬂicts, install all programs in the environment (snowﬂakes) at the same time. TIP: Environments install by default into the envs directory in your conda directory. You can specify a di􀀞erent path; see conda create--help for details. source activate snowflakes (Linux, Mac) activate snowflakes (Windows) Activate the new environment to use it TIP: Activate prepends the path to the snowﬂakes environment. conda create-n bunnies python=3.4 astroid Create a new environment, specify Python version conda create-n flowers--clone snowflakes Make exact copy of an environment Managing Python conda search--full-name python Check versions of Python available to install or conda search-f python | conda create-n snakes python=3.4 Install di erent version of Python in new environment | | | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | source activate | | | snakes (Linux, Mac) | Switch to the new environment that has a | | activate snakes | | | (Windows) | di erent version of Python
TIP: Activate prepends the path to the snakes environment. | | Managing .condarc conﬁguration | | | | | | conda | config | --get | | Get all keys and values from my . condarc ﬁle | | conda | config | --get channels | | Get value of the key channels from . condarc ﬁle | conda config--add channels pandas Add a new value to channels so conda looks for packages in this location Managing packages, including Python conda list View list of packages and versions installed in active environment conda search beautiful-soup Search for a package to see if it is available to conda install conda install-n bunnies beautiful-soup Install a new package NOTE: If you do not include the name of the new environment (-n bunnies) it will install in the current active environment. TIP: To view list of all packages available through conda install, visit[http://docs.continuum.io/anaconda/pkg-docs.html](http://docs.continuum.io/anaconda/pkg-docs.html). conda update beautiful-soup Update a package in the current environment conda search--override-channels-c pandas bottleneck Search for a package in a speciﬁc location (the pandas channel on [Anaconda.org](Anaconda.org)) NOTE: Alternativley, go [to Anaconda.org](to Anaconda.org) in the browser and search by package name. This will show the speciﬁc channel (owner) through which it is available. conda install-c pandas bottleneck Install a package from a speciﬁc channel conda search--override-channels-c defaults beautiful-soup Search for a package to see if it is available from the Anaconda repository source activate bunnies (Linux, Mac) activate bunnies (Windows) pip install see Activate the environment where you want to install a package and install it with pip (included with Anaconda and Miniconda) conda install iopro accelerate Install commercial Continuum packages Removing packages or environments conda remove--name bunnies beautiful-soup Remove one package from any named environment conda remove beautiful-soup Remove one package from the active environment conda remove--name bunnies beautiful-soup astroid Remove multiple packages from any environment conda remove--name sn

FAQs

How can I get full documentation for a conda command?

Run the command followed by --help to view its full documentation.

What is the recommended workflow for new projects?

Create a new environment for each new project or workflow, then activate it before installing packages.

How do I install packages into a specific conda environment and avoid mixing environments?

Use -n ENVNAME with conda install (or conda remove) so operations target the named environment rather than the current active one.

Oct 13, 2026

Upload by dawugda