How to Seamlessly Run Python Code on a Remote Server Using PyCharm

Preface

This article shows how to configure PyCharm to use a Python environment on a remote server.

Why do it?

The author needed to run a long‑running web‑scraping script on a remote machine without manually transferring files.

My environment

滴滴云 ubuntu 18.04 version, installed Anaconda
pycharm2019 professional edition

Note:

PyCharm must be the Professional edition to support remote interpreter.

Prefer using Anaconda on Linux to avoid conflicts with the system pip.

Steps

Configure remote server information

Open PyCharm → Tools → Deployment → Configuration and add a new SFTP server, give it a name, and fill in the host, port, username and password.

Set up the Connection and Mappings sections, then click OK.

Enable automatic upload via Tools → Deployment → Automatic Upload.

Configure remote Python interpreter

Open

File → Settings → Project: <project name> → Project Interpreter

, click the plus sign, choose SSH Interpreter, enter the server details, and select the path to the remote Python executable.

Apply the settings and confirm.

Synchronize code

Press Ctrl+S (or enable automatic upload) to push local changes to the remote /tmp directory.

Applicable scenarios

Ideal for web‑scraping projects or any long‑running tasks that need to run on a remote Linux server without manual file transfers.