Managing Python Virtual Environments with Conda: Overview, Creation, Activation, and Package Installation

Today we discuss the value of Python virtual environments and the common commands used to manage them.

In real‑world projects, different applications often depend on different libraries or library versions (e.g., Scrapy, Beautiful Soup). Installing and uninstalling these packages directly in the global Python environment quickly becomes messy and error‑prone.

Typical scenarios include:

Project A requires library version 1.0 while Project B needs version 2.0; without isolated environments you would have to constantly uninstall and reinstall packages, leading to conflicts.

An older project runs on Python 2.7, whereas a new project requires Python 3.x; without virtual environments the two cannot coexist on the same system.

Understanding the basic commands for virtual environment management is therefore essential.

Viewing Existing Virtual Environments

# Run the following command in the terminal
conda info --envs

Creating a New Virtual Environment

# Run the following command in the terminal
conda create --name newName python=3.7

After creating multiple environments and installing different third‑party packages in each, switching between environments becomes important.

Switching Virtual Environments

# Switch to the desired environment (example: project-1)
conda activate project-1

Once the environment is active, you can install packages within it:

# Install ipykernel in the current environment
conda install ipykernel