Pip is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

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How to Fix PIP Is Not Recognized in Windows Command Prompt?

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PIP Is Not Recognized
Fixes for PIP Not Recognized
Check if PIP Is Added to the PATH Variable
Add PIP to the PATH Variable
Final Words
About The Author
PiP is not recognized as an internal or external command
PREVENT YOUR SERVER FROM CRASHING!
How do you fix pip is not recognized as an internal or external command operable program or batch file?
Why is pip not working in command prompt?
How do you fix Python is not recognized as an internal or external command operable program or batch file?
Why is pip not working in VS code?

By Vera | Follow | Last Updated November 29, 2020

When installing Python packages in Command Prompt, you may get the error message saying “'pip' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file”. How can you fix the issue? MiniTool will show you some methods in this post.

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PIP Is Not Recognized

PIP, Pip Installs Package, is a standard package management system. It is used to install and handle software packages written in Python. By default, most versions of Python have PIP installed.

When installing Python packages in the Command Prompt window, Windows will show you an error saying “’pip' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file”.

The main reasons for PIP not recognized are because PIP installation is not added to the system variable or the installation is incorrectly added in your PATH. To fix this issue, you can follow some methods below.

Tip: Not recognized as an internal or external command is a common issue and it doesn’t only occur with PIP. This related article may be helpful to you - Not recognized Fix “Not Recognized As an Internal or External Command” Win 10.

Fixes for PIP Not Recognized

Check if PIP Is Added to the PATH Variable

Firstly you should know if your PIP installation is added to your PATH variable. Just do this thing through the following steps:

Step 1: Launch Command Prompt as administrator.

Step 2: Type echo %PATH% and press Enter. You can see a list of all the locations added to the PATH variable.

Step 3: Try to search for something similar to C:\Python37\Scripts. If you find one, this means the installation path has already been added to the PATH variable. If not, you need to add it to the variable.

Add PIP to the PATH Variable

Here are three options for you to do this work – use Windows GUI, a command line, and a Python executable installer.

Windows GUI

Step 1: Press Win + X, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and click OK.

Step 2: Under the Advanced tab, click Environment Variables.

Step 3: Go to System variables, click Path > Edit.

Pip is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Step 4: Click New and type in C:\Python34\Scripts.

CMD

A quick way to add PIP to the PATH variable is using Command Prompt and now let’s see it.

Step 1: Run Command Prompt.

Step 2: Type setx PATH “%PATH%;C:\Python37\Scripts” and press Enter. Replace Python37 with your Python version.

Step 3: Then, run a Python installation package to see if “PIP is not recognized as an internal or external command” is fixed.

Use Python Executable Installer

Step 1: Run python –version in the CMD window to check the Python version installed.

Step 2: Go to Python.org to download the same version of the executable installer.

Step 3: Run the setup and choose Modify.

Step 4: Make sure the option of pip is selected.

Step 5: In the Advanced Options window, choose Add Python to environment variables and click Install.

Final Words

Have you got “PIP is not a recognized command”? Try to fix it by following the above methods and we hope you can easily get rid of the trouble.

About The Author

Position: Columnist

Vera is an editor of the MiniTool Team since 2016 who has more than 5 years’ writing experiences in the field of technical articles. Her articles mainly focus on disk & partition management, PC data recovery, video conversion, as well as PC backup & restore, helping users to solve some errors and issues when using their computers. In her spare times, she likes shopping, playing games and reading some articles.

We come across the error, PiP is not recognized as an internal or external command when we try to install Python packages using a Command Prompt window.

As part of our Server Management Services, we assist our customers with several Python queries.

Today, let us discuss the error, PiP is not recognized as an internal or external command.

PiP is not recognized as an internal or external command

Most users make use of PiP to install and manage Python packages found in the Python Package Index.

This error means that the Python is either not installed or the system variable path has not been set.

Some customers report that the issue occurs even after installing the Python distribution and making sure that Python is in the path variable.

The major causes of this error include:

PIP installation is not added to the system variable

In order to run Python commands from a CMD window, we need to add the path of PiP installation to our PATH in the system variable.

The installation is incorrectly added in our PATH

When we add the PATH manually, additional space or a missing semicolon before the new PATH will end up in the error.

Solutions

Moving ahead, let us see the solutions our Support Techs employ in order to fix the error.

Method 1: Check if PIP is added to our PATH variable

Type “cmd” in the Run prompt and press Enter.
Inside the command prompt window, type echo %PATH% and press Enter to list all locations in the PATH variable.
A path similar to C:\Python37\Scripts means that the installation path already exists in the PATH variable.

Method 2: Add PIP to the PATH environment variable using the Windows GUI

Type “sysdm.cpl” in the Run prompt and press Enter.
Inside the System Properties screen, go to Advanced tab >> Environment Variables.
In there, go to System variables and click on Path to select it. Then click Edit…
In the Edit environment variable screen, click on New and add the path where the PiP installation is located.
Once done, we open a fresh CMD window install a python package that comes with PiP.

Method 3: AddPIP to the PATH environment variable using CMD

An easy way is to do it directly from a CMD window.

We follow the following steps to set the PiP path environment directly from a Command Prompt window:

Type “cmd” in the Run prompt and press Enter to open a Command Prompt window.
Then, run the following command to set the PIP installation to the environment variable:
```
setx PATH “%PATH%;C:\Python37\Scripts”
```

In the command, we can change the Python version after ‘;‘ accordingly.

Method 4: Open the Python package without adding the PiP variable

In order to do this, we can use a couple of different commands. This also works if we use the methods above to configure the environment PATH variable but still stuck with the error.

The Short Method:

Type “cmd” in the Run prompt and press Enter.
Then type the following commands and make sure to change the placeholder to our own package name:
```
python -m pip install [packagename]
```

The Long Method:

Type “cmd” in the Run prompt and hit Enter.
In the CMD window, use the following command to navigate to the directory where the python .whl file is.
```
cd C:\python installs
```
Next, run the following command to install the Python package using pip:
```
c:\python37\scripts\pip.exe install [package].whl
```

We change the location of our python installation according to the version or if we install it in a custom location. Also, make sure to change the [package] placeholder to our own package name.

Method 5: Ensure that PiP is included in Python installation

Before reinstalling the whole Python environment, we need to check whether PiP was not omitted from the Python installation. Certain Python installers will leave PiP out of the default installation.

We can rectify this by modifying the Python installation and modifying it to install PIP. Follow the steps given below:

Type “appwiz.cpl” in the Run prompt and press Enter to open Programs and Features.
Then, right-click on the Python installation and click Change.
At the Modify Setup screen, click on Modify.
In the Optional Features screen, check the box associated with pip and click Next.
Then hit the Install button to make the changes to the Python installation.

Once done, open a CMD window and see if we are able to install a Python package with PiP without the error.

Method 6: Install Python via the executable installer

Reinstalling Python along with its components will likely resolve this error.

The easiest way is to use the Python executable installer. If we configure it correctly, it will automatically install PiP.

Type “appwiz.cpl” in the Run prompt and press Enter to open Programs and Features.
Scroll down to find the Python installation. Once we find it, right-click and choose Uninstall, then follow the on-screen prompts to remove it from our system. Once done, restart the machine.
At the next startup, visit the URL given below and download the latest Python executable installer according to our OS architecture.
https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/
Open the installation executable and check the box near Add Python to PATH. Then, click on Customize installation.
In the Optional Features window, make sure to check the box associated with pip, then click Next.
Leave the default location and Advanced Options, then click Install to commence the installation.
Once done, restart the computer manually.
Then, try to install a Python package via a CMD window.
If we are still seeing the error, type the following command in a CMD window:
```
python -m ensurepip --default-pip
```

[Couldn’t solve the error? We are here for you]

Conclusion

In short, the error, “PiP is not recognized as an internal or external command” occurs when we try to install Python packages via a Command Prompt window.

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How do you fix pip is not recognized as an internal or external command operable program or batch file?

To fix it, you will either need to re-install Python and check the box to add Python to your PATH or install pip on your command line. And an error message from DOS command line. 'pip' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Why is pip not working in command prompt?

Reinstall Python to Fix 'Pip' is Not Recognized as an Internal or External Command. This error usually means there's a problem with the Python installation or the system variable PATH is not set up correctly. Try reinstalling Python and all its components to fix the problem.

How do you fix Python is not recognized as an internal or external command operable program or batch file?

To resolve this error, follow the steps below: Find a folder with the installed Python version as its name in X:\Program Files (where X is the drive where Windows is installed; e.g., C:\Program Files\Python36 ). If such a folder does not exist, download and install the latest version of Python here.

Why is pip not working in VS code?

Nearly every issue I've had with this error was because of multiple versions of python (and pip) or because vscode could not figure out the PATH because there were conflicts there. Make sure your PATH is correct.