How to install pip for Python 3 on Mac OS X?

I had to go through this process myself and chose a different way that I think is better in the long run.

I installed homebrew

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

then:

brew doctor

The last step gives you some warnings and errors that you have to resolve. One of those will be to download and install the Mac OS X command-line tools.

then:

brew install python3

This gave me python3 and pip3 in my path.

pieter$ which pip3 python3
/usr/local/bin/pip3
/usr/local/bin/python3

Here is my simple solution:

If you have python2 and python3 both installed in your system, the pip upgrade will point to python2 by default. Hence, we must specify the version of python(python3) and use the below command:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip

This command will uninstall the previously installed pip and install the new version- upgrading your pip.

This will save memory and declutter your system.

Image - How the upgrading of pip in Python3 works on MacOS

UPDATE: This is no longer necessary as of Python3.4. pip3 is installed as part of the general Python3 installation.

I ended up posting this same question on the python mailing list, and got the following answer:

# download and install setuptools
curl -O https://bootstrap.pypa.io/ez_setup.py
python3 ez_setup.py
# download and install pip
curl -O https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
python3 get-pip.py

Which solved my question perfectly. After adding the following for my own:

cd /usr/local/bin
ln -s ../../../Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.3/bin/pip pip

So that I could run pip directly, I was able to:

# use pip to install
pip install pyserial

or:

# Don't want it?
pip uninstall pyserial

Install Python3 on mac

1. brew install python3
2. curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python3
3. python3

Use pip3 to install modules

1. pip3 install ipython
2. python3 -m IPython

:)