Conda Environment Management Guide

This document provides a concise reference for creating, locating, customizing, exporting, renaming, and removing Conda virtual environments on macOS (and other platforms). Use it as a cheat sheet in your projects.

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1. Conda Basics

• Conda is a cross-platform package and environment manager.
• Installs packages (Python and non-Python) and manages isolated environments under a central conda installation.

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2. Creating Environments

2.1 By Name

# Create a new env called "myenv" with Python 3.10
conda create -n myenv python=3.10

2.1 At a Custom Path (Prefix)

conda create --prefix /path/to/envs/myenv python=3.10

• Use full path for activation: conda activate /path/to/envs/myenv

• In a YAML manifest, replace name: with:

prefix: /path/to/envs/myenv

3. Locating Your Environments

3.1 Show base directory

conda info --base

3.2 List all envs with full paths

conda env list

or

conda info --envs

4. Exporting & Recreating Environments

4.1 Export to YAML

# Minimal (explicit installs only)
conda env export --from-history > environment.yml

# Full (all dependencies)
conda env export > environment.yml

4.2 YAML format

name: myenv         # or 'prefix: /path/to/env'
channels:
  - defaults
dependencies:
  - python=3.10
  - numpy
  - pandas
  - pip
  - pip:
    - package-only-on-pip==1.2.3

5. Removing Environments

5.1 Conda Envs

### Conda Envs
conda env remove -n myenv
# or
conda remove --name myenv --all

# By path
conda env remove --prefix /full/path/to/env

5.2 Python venv or virtualenv

# If active, first deactivate
deactivate
# Then delete the directory
rm -rf /path/to/env_dir