Problem Formulation: Given a file yourPackage.whl
that resides in the folder C:\your\folder\
. How to install it on your Windows machine?
Background .whl Files
A .whl
file (read: wheel file) is a zip archive that contains all the files necessary to run a Python application.
It’s a built-package format for Python, i.e., a zip archive with .whl
suffix such as in yourPackage.whl
. The purpose of a wheel is to contain all files for a PEP-compliant installation that approximately matches the on-disk format.
It allows you to migrate a Python application from one system to another in a simple and robust way.
Method 1: Powershell + pip + cd
This GIF shows you how you’d install a .whl
package (e.g., downloaded from the Python Package index)—if unlike me, you’d downloaded the correct .whl
file for your environment ;):

- Open your Windows command line or Powershell.
cd
into the folder where theyourPackage.whl
file resides.
cd C:\your\folder\
- Optional: Install
pip
on Windows. Chances are that it’s already installed—it comes with many Python distributions. - Run the following command:
pip install yourPackage.whl
Method 2: Powershell + pip without cd
- Open your Windows command line or Powershell.
- Optional: Install
pip
on Windows. Chances are that it’s already installed—it comes with many Python distributions. - Run the following command:
pip install C:\your\folder\yourPackage.whl
Method 3: Powershell + pip + wheel
- Open the Powershell or command line in Windows
- Upgrade
pip
to ensure thatwheel
is supported—which it is only for the newer versions ofpip
:
pip install --upgrade pip
- Run the following command:
pip install --use-wheel --no-index --find-links=C:\your\folder\ yourPackage
Troubleshooting
If you experience problems with the installation, you may want to go over the following list with possible fixes, in this order:
- Open the command line or Powershell as an administrator by right-clicking on the program symbol and select “Open as administrator”:

- For Python 3, sometimes you’ll need to use the command
pip3
instead ofpip
:
pip3 install C:\your\folder\yourPackage.whl
- Upgrade
pip
using the command in your Powershell or command line:
pip install --upgrade pip
- If
pip
orpip3
still doesn’t work, try to run the following command to install the.whl
package:
python -m pip install some-package.whl

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