How to Install protobuf in Python?

by 
pip install protobuf

The Python protobuf library is among the top 100 Python libraries, with more than 62,163,331 downloads. This article will show you everything you need to get this installed in your Python environment.

Alternatively, you may use any of the following commands to install protobuf, depending on your concrete environment. One is likely to work!

💡 If you have only one version of Python installed:
pip install protobuf

💡 If you have Python 3 (and, possibly, other versions) installed:
pip3 install protobuf

💡 If you don't have PIP or it doesn't work
python -m pip install protobuf
python3 -m pip install protobuf

💡 If you have Linux and you need to fix permissions (any one):
sudo pip3 install protobuf
pip3 install protobuf --user

💡 If you have Linux with apt
sudo apt install protobuf

💡 If you have Windows and you have set up the py alias
py -m pip install protobuf

💡 If you have Anaconda
conda install -c anaconda protobuf

💡 If you have Jupyter Notebook
!pip install protobuf
!pip3 install protobuf

How to Install protobuf on Windows?

  1. Type "cmd" in the search bar and hit Enter to open the command line.
  2. Type “pip install protobuf” (without quotes) in the command line and hit Enter again. This installs protobuf for your default Python installation.
  3. The previous command may not work if you have both Python versions 2 and 3 on your computer. In this case, try "pip3 install protobuf" or “python -m pip install protobuf“.
  4. Wait for the installation to terminate successfully. It is now installed on your Windows machine.

Here’s how to open the command line on a (German) Windows machine:

Open CMD in Windows

First, try the following command to install protobuf on your system:

pip install protobuf

Second, if this leads to an error message, try this command to install protobuf on your system:

pip3 install protobuf

Third, if both do not work, use the following long-form command:

python -m pip install protobuf

The difference between pip and pip3 is that pip3 is an updated version of pip for Python version 3. Depending on what’s first in the PATH variable, pip will refer to your Python 2 or Python 3 installation—and you cannot know which without checking the environment variables. To resolve this uncertainty, you can use pip3, which will always refer to your default Python 3 installation.

How to Install protobuf on Linux?

You can install protobuf on Linux in four steps:

  1. Open your Linux terminal or shell
  2. Type “pip install protobuf” (without quotes), hit Enter.
  3. If it doesn’t work, try "pip3 install protobuf" or “python -m pip install protobuf“.
  4. Wait for the installation to terminate successfully.

The package is now installed on your Linux operating system.

How to Install protobuf on macOS?

Similarly, you can install protobuf on macOS in four steps:

  1. Open your macOS terminal.
  2. Type “pip install protobuf” without quotes and hit Enter.
  3. If it doesn’t work, try "pip3 install protobuf" or “python -m pip install protobuf“.
  4. Wait for the installation to terminate successfully.

The package is now installed on your macOS.

How to Install protobuf in PyCharm?

Given a PyCharm project. How to install the protobuf library in your project within a virtual environment or globally? Here’s a solution that always works:

  • Open File > Settings > Project from the PyCharm menu.
  • Select your current project.
  • Click the Python Interpreter tab within your project tab.
  • Click the small + symbol to add a new library to the project.
  • Now type in the library to be installed, in your example "protobuf" without quotes, and click Install Package.
  • Wait for the installation to terminate and close all pop-ups.

Here’s the general package installation process as a short animated video—it works analogously for protobuf if you type in “protobuf” in the search field instead:

Make sure to select only “protobuf” because there may be other packages that are not required but also contain the same term (false positives):

How to Install protobuf in a Jupyter Notebook?

To install any package in a Jupyter notebook, you can prefix the !pip install my_package statement with the exclamation mark "!". This works for the protobuf library too:

!pip install my_package

This automatically installs the protobuf library when the cell is first executed.

How to Resolve ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘protobuf’?

Say you try to import the protobuf package into your Python script without installing it first:

import protobuf
# ... ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'protobuf'

Because you haven’t installed the package, Python raises a ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'protobuf'.

To fix the error, install the protobuf library using “pip install protobuf” or “pip3 install protobuf” in your operating system’s shell or terminal first.

See above for the different ways to install protobuf in your environment.

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