PyCharm 2021.3 Help

Install PyCharm

PyCharm is a cross-platform IDE that provides consistent experience on the Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems.

PyCharm is available in three editions: Professional, Community, and Edu. The Community and Edu editions are open-source projects and they are free, but they have fewer features. PyCharm Edu provides courses and helps you learn programming with Python. The Professional edition is commercial, and provides an outstanding set of tools and features. For details, see the editions comparison matrix.

System requirements

Requirement

Minimum

Recommended

RAM

4 GB of free RAM

8 GB of total system RAM

CPU

Any modern CPU

Multi-core CPU. PyCharm supports multithreading for different operations and processes making it faster the more CPU cores it can use.

Disk space

2.5 GB and another 1 GB for caches

SSD drive with at least 5 GB of free space

Monitor resolution

1024x768

1920×1080

Operating system

Officially released 64-bit versions of the following:

  • Microsoft Windows 8 or later

  • macOS 10.14 or later

  • Any Linux distribution that supports Gnome, KDE , or Unity DE. PyCharm is not available for some Linux distributions, such as RHEL6 or CentOS6, that do not include GLIBC 2.14 or later.

Pre-release versions are not supported.

Latest 64-bit version of Windows, macOS, or Linux (for example, Debian, Ubuntu, or RHEL)

You do not need to install Java to run PyCharm because JetBrains Runtime is bundled with the IDE (based on JRE 11).

  • Python 2: version 2.7

  • Python 3: from the version 3.6 up to the version 3.11

Install using the Toolbox App

The JetBrains Toolbox App is the recommended tool to install JetBrains products. Use it to install and manage different products or several versions of the same product, including Early Access Program (EAP) and Nightly releases, update and roll back when necessary, and easily remove any tool. The Toolbox App maintains a list of all your projects to quickly open any project in the right IDE and version.

Install the Toolbox App

  1. Download the installer .exe from the Toolbox App web page.

  2. Run the installer and follow the wizard steps.

After you run the Toolbox App, click its icon in the notification area and select which product and version you want to install.

The Toolbox App

Log in to your JetBrains Account from the Toolbox App and it will automatically activate the available licenses for any IDE that you install.

Install the Toolbox App

  1. Download the disk image .dmg from the Toolbox App web page.

  2. Mount the image and drag the JetBrains Toolbox app to the Applications folder.

After you run the Toolbox App, click its icon in the main menu and select which product and version you want to install.

The Toolbox App

Log in to your JetBrains Account from the Toolbox App and it will automatically activate the available licenses for any IDE that you install.

Install the Toolbox App

  1. Download the tarball .tar.gz from the Toolbox App web page.

  2. Extract the tarball to a directory that supports file execution.

    For example, if the downloaded version is 1.17.7391, you can extract it to the recommended /opt directory using the following command:

    sudo tar -xzf jetbrains-toolbox-1.17.7391.tar.gz -C /opt

Execute the jetbrains-toolbox binary from the extracted directory to run the Toolbox App and select which product and version you want to install. After you run the Toolbox App for the first time, it will automatically add the Toolbox App icon to the main menu.

The Toolbox App

Log in to your JetBrains Account from the Toolbox App and it will automatically activate the available licenses for any IDE that you install.

Standalone installation

Install PyCharm manually to manage the location of every instance and all the configuration files. For example, if you have a policy that requires specific install locations.

  1. Download the installer .exe.

    To verify the integrity of the installer, use the SHA checksum linked from the Download page.

  2. Run the installer and follow the wizard steps.

    Mind the following options in the installation wizard

    • 64-bit launcher: Adds a launching icon to the Desktop.

    • Open Folder as Project: Adds an option to the folder context menu that will allow opening the selected directory as a PyCharm project.

    • .py: Establishes an association with Python files to open them in PyCharm.

    • Add launchers dir to the PATH: Allows running this PyCharm instance from the Console without specifying the path to it.

To run PyCharm, find it in the Windows Start menu or use the desktop shortcut. You can also run the launcher batch script or executable in the installation directory under bin.

  1. Download the disk image .

    To verify the integrity of the downloaded disk image, use the SHA checksum linked from the Download page.

  2. Mount the image and drag the PyCharm app to the Applications folder.

Run the PyCharm app from the Applications directory, Launchpad, or Spotlight.

Install using tar archives

  1. Download the tarball

  2. Unpack the pycharm-*.tar.gz file to a different folder, if your current Download folder doesn't support file execution:

    tar xzf pycharm-*.tar.gz -C <new_archive_folder>

    The recommended installation location according to the filesystem hierarchy standard (FHS) is /opt. To install PyCharm into this directory, enter the following command:

    sudo tar xzf pycharm-*.tar.gz -C /opt/

    To verify integrity of the downloaded archive, use the SHA checksum linked from the Download page.

  3. Switch to the bin subdirectory:

    cd <new archive folder>/pycharm-*/bin

    For example,

    cd /opt/pycharm-*/bin

  4. Run pycharm.sh from the bin subdirectory.

    sh pycharm.sh

Install using snap packages

  1. For Ubuntu 16.04 and later, you can use snap packages to install PyCharm.

    PyCharm is distributed via two channels:

    • The stable channel includes only stable versions. To install the latest stable release of PyCharm, run the following command:

      sudo snap install pycharm-professional --classic
      sudo snap install pycharm-community --classic
      sudo snap install pycharm-educational --classic

    • The edge channel includes EAP builds. To install the latest EAP build of PyCharm, run the following command:

      sudo snap install pycharm-professional --classic --edge
      sudo snap install pycharm-community --classic --edge
      sudo snap install pycharm-educational --classic --edge

  2. Run pycharm-professional, pycharm-community, or pycharm-educational in the Terminal.

Find more details at https://snapcraft.io/.

To create a desktop entry, do one of the following:

  • On the Welcome screen, click Configure | Create Desktop Entry

  • From the main menu, click Tools | Create Desktop Entry

When you run PyCharm for the first time, you can take several steps to complete the installation, customize your instance, and start working with the IDE.

For more information, see Run PyCharm for the first time.

For information about the location of the default IDE directories with user-specific files, see Directories used by the IDE.

Silent installation on Windows

Silent installation is performed without any user interface. It can be used by network administrators to install PyCharm on a number of machines and avoid interrupting other users.

To perform silent install, run the installer with the following switches:

  • /S: Enable silent install

  • /CONFIG: Specify the path to the silent configuration file

  • /D: Specify the path to the installation directory

    This parameter must be the last in the command line and it should not contain any quotes even if the path contains blank spaces.

For example:

pycharm-professional.exe /S /CONFIG=d:\temp\silent.config /D=d:\IDE\PyCharm

or

pycharm.exe /S /CONFIG=d:\temp\edu_silent.config /D=d:\IDE\PyCharm Edu

To check for issues during the installation process, add the /LOG switch with the log file path and name between the /S and /D parameters. The installer will generate the specified log file. For example:

pycharm-professional.exe /S /CONFIG=d:\temp\silent.config /LOG=d:\JetBrains\PyCharm\install.log /D=d:\IDE\PyCharm

or

pycharm.exe /S /CONFIG=d:\temp\edu_silent.config /LOG=d:\JetBrains\PyCharmEdu\install.log /D=d:\IDE\PyCharm Edu

Silent configuration file

You can download the silent configuration files for PyCharm at https://download.jetbrains.com/python/silent.config and https://download.jetbrains.com/python/edu_silent.config

The silent configuration file defines the options for installing PyCharm. With the default options, silent installation is performed only for the current user: mode=user. If you want to install PyCharm for all users, change the value of the installation mode option to mode=admin and run the installer as an administrator.

The default silent configuration file is unique for each JetBrains product. You can modify it to enable or disable various installation options as necessary.

See more details on installing PyCharm in the video tutorial:

Last modified: 12 April 2022
Run PyCharm for the first time