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Conda can be installed through several distributions. Choose the one that best fits your needs.

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Installation Options

There are three main ways to install Conda:

Miniconda

Minimal installer with just Conda and its dependencies

Miniforge

Community-driven minimal installer with conda-forge as default channel

Anaconda Distribution

Full distribution with hundreds of pre-installed packages

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Miniconda

Miniconda is a minimal installer that includes only Conda and its dependencies. This is recommended if you want a lightweight installation and prefer to install only the packages you need.
1

Download Miniconda

Visit docs.anaconda.com/free/miniconda and download the installer for your platform:
  • Windows: Download the .exe installer
  • macOS: Download the .pkg or .sh installer
  • Linux: Download the .sh installer
2

Run the installer

# Run the .exe installer and follow the prompts
Miniconda3-latest-Windows-x86_64.exe
3

Follow installation prompts

Accept the license agreement and choose your installation location. The installer will set up Conda in the specified directory.

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Miniforge

Miniforge is a community-driven minimal installer that uses conda-forge as the default channel. It’s ideal for users who want to use the conda-forge community packages.
1

Download Miniforge

Visit conda-forge.org/download and download the installer for your platform.
2

Run the installer

Follow the same installation process as Miniconda for your operating system.

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Anaconda Distribution

The Anaconda Distribution includes Conda plus hundreds of pre-installed packages commonly used for data science and machine learning. This is recommended if you want a complete, ready-to-use environment.
1

Download Anaconda

Visit anaconda.com/download and download the installer for your platform.
2

Run the installer

Follow the installation wizard for your operating system.

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Verifying Your Installation

After installation, verify that Conda is properly installed and accessible:
1

Open a new terminal

Open a new terminal window or command prompt to ensure the installation path is loaded.
2

Check Conda version

conda --version
This should display the installed Conda version, for example:
conda 24.1.2
3

List installed packages (optional)

If you installed the Anaconda Distribution, you can see all pre-installed packages:
conda list

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Updating Conda

After installation, it’s a good practice to update Conda to the newest version: 
$ conda update --name base conda
It is possible that conda update does not install the newest version if the existing conda version is far behind the current release. In this case, updating needs to be done in stages.For example, to update from conda 4.12 to conda 23.10.0, conda 22.11.1 needs to be installed first:
$ conda install --name base conda=22.11.1
$ conda update conda

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Next Steps

Now that you have Conda installed, check out the Quick Start guide to learn the basics of using Conda.

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