Python is a popular programming language used for a variety of applications, including web development, data analysis, and machine learning. However, different projects and applications may require different versions of Python, and managing multiple versions on a single machine can be challenging.

Fortunately, pyenv is a tool that makes it easy to install and manage multiple versions of Python on macOS. In this article, we’ll go through the steps to install and use pyenv on macOS.

Before we get started, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

Homebrew is a package manager for macOS that makes it easy to install and manage software packages on your system. To install Homebrew, open your terminal and run the following command:

Follow the prompts to complete the installation.

pyenv is a Python version manager that lets you easily install and switch between multiple Python versions. To install pyenv, run the following command in your terminal:

This will install pyenv and its dependencies on your system.

Now that you have pyenv installed, you can use it to install multiple versions of Python. To see a list of available Python versions, run the following command:

This will show you a list of all the available Python versions that you can install with pyenv. To install a specific version, run the following command:

For example, to install Python 3.9.10, run the following command:

You can install as many Python versions as you need.

By default, the system Python version is used when you run the python command. To use a different version of Python, you can use pyenv to set the global version. To set the global Python version to a specific version, run the following command:

For example, to set the global Python version to Python 3.9.10, run the following command:

This will make Python 3.9.10 the default version of Python for your system.

To keep your Python projects isolated from each other, it’s a good practice to use virtual environments. A virtual environment is a self-contained Python environment that allows you to install packages and dependencies for a specific project without affecting the system Python or other projects.

To create a new virtual environment, run the following command:

For example, to create a virtual environment called myenv for Python 3.9.10, run the following command:

This will create a new virtual environment in ~/.pyenv/versions//envs/.

To activate the virtual environment, run the following command:

For example, to activate the myenv virtual environment, run the following command:

This will activate the virtual environment and make it the default Python environment for your terminal session.