'pip' is not recognized as an internal or external command

As of now, version 3.7.3 I had a little bit of an issue with getting the right system variable.

Try this:

  1. Type start %appdata% in cmd.

  2. After that file explorer should pop up in ../AppData/Roaming.

Go back one directory and navigate to Local/Programs/Python/Python37-32/Scripts.

NOTE: The version number may be different so if you copy and paste the above file path it could not work.

After you do this you now have the correct location of your downloaded Python. Copy your file path by selecting the whole directory in the address bar.

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Once you do that click the start icon and navigate to the Control PanelSystem and SecuritySystem. Then click "Advanced System Settings" on the left side of the panel.

Once there, click Environment Variables on the bottom right and there will be two boxes, an upper and a lower box. In the upper box: Click on the 'Path' Variable and click Edit located on the right. Click New and paste your directory Path. It should look something like this:

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Click OK three times, open a new window of cmd and type: pip. See if it works.


You need to add the path of your pip installation to your PATH system variable. By default, pip is installed to C:\Python34\Scripts\pip (pip now comes bundled with new versions of python), so the path "C:\Python34\Scripts" needs to be added to your PATH variable.

To check if it is already in your PATH variable, type echo %PATH% at the CMD prompt

To add the path of your pip installation to your PATH variable, you can use the Control Panel or the setx command. For example:

setx PATH "%PATH%;C:\Python34\Scripts"

Note: According to the official documentation, "[v]ariables set with setx variables are available in future command windows only, not in the current command window". In particular, you will need to start a new cmd.exe instance after entering the above command in order to utilize the new environment variable.

Thanks to Scott Bartell for pointing this out.


For Windows, when you install a package, you type:

python -m pip install [packagename]

For me the command:

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Python34\Scripts

worked immediately (try after echo %PATH% and you will see that your path has the value C:\Python34\Scripts).

Thanks to: Adding a directory to the PATH environment variable in Windows