Configure an interpreter using command line

When launching PyCharm from the command line, you can specify which Python interpreter to use for new and existing projects.

Launch PyCharm with a pre-configured Python interpreter

You can find the executable for running PyCharm in the installation directory under bin. To use this executable as the command-line launcher, add it to your system PATH as described in Command-line interface.

In the command line, execute the following command to set the PYCHARM_PYTHON_PATH variable:
set PYCHARM_PYTHON_PATH=<PATH_TO_PYTHON>
Replace <PATH_TO_PYTHON> with a path to the required Python SDK executable.
This command sets the PYCHARM_PYTHON_PATH environment variable only for the current shell.
Launch PyCharm from the same shell:
<PYCHARM_INSTALLATION_PATH>\bin\pycharm64.exe
<PYCHARM_INSTALLATION_PATH> is the path to the PyCharm installation directory. For example, C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm.
If you have added the PyCharm executable to PATH, just type pycharm.

By default, PyCharm does not provide a command-line launcher. For more information about creating a launcher script for PyCharm, refer to Command-line interface.

In the command line, execute the following command to set the PYCHARM_PYTHON_PATH variable:
PYCHARM_PYTHON_PATH=<PATH_TO_PYTHON>
Replace <PATH_TO_PYTHON> with a path to the required Python SDK executable.
This command sets the PYCHARM_PYTHON_PATH environment variable only for the current shell.
Launch PyCharm from the same shell:
open -na "PyCharm.app"
If PyCharm is not in the default /Applications directory, specify the full path to it.
If you have created a launcher script, just type pycharm.

You can find the script for running PyCharm in the installation directory under bin. To use this script as the command-line launcher, create a symbolic link in a directory from the PATH environment variable as described in Command-line interface.

In the command line, execute the following command to set the PYCHARM_PYTHON_PATH variable:
export PYCHARM_PYTHON_PATH=<PATH_TO_PYTHON>
Replace <PATH_TO_PYTHON> with a path to the required Python SDK executable.
This command sets the PYCHARM_PYTHON_PATH environment variable only for the current shell.
Launch PyCharm from the same shell:
sh <PYCHARM_INSTALLATION_PATH>/bin/pycharm.sh
<PYCHARM_INSTALLATION_PATH> is the path to the PyCharm installation directory. For example, /opt/pycharm/.
If you have created a symbolic link to the launcher script, just type pycharm.

Last modified: 11 February 2024