Installation

Warnings

Warning

Pillow and PIL cannot co-exist in the same environment. Before installing Pillow, please uninstall PIL.

Warning

Pillow >= 1.0 no longer supports "import Image". Please use "from PIL import Image" instead.

Warning

Pillow >= 2.1.0 no longer supports "import _imaging". Please use "from PIL.Image import core as _imaging" instead.

Python Support

Pillow supports these Python versions.

Python

3.9

3.8

3.7

3.6

3.5

3.4

3.3

3.2

2.7

2.6

2.5

2.4

Pillow >= 8.0

Yes

Pillow 7.0 - 7.2

Yes

Pillow 6.2.1 - 6.2.2

Yes

Pillow 6.0 - 6.2.0

Yes

Pillow 5.2 - 5.4

Yes

Pillow 5.0 - 5.1

Yes

Pillow 4

Yes

Pillow 2 - 3

Yes

Pillow < 2

Yes

Basic Installation

Note

The following instructions will install Pillow with support for most common image formats. See external-libraries for a full list of external libraries supported.

Install Pillow with pip:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow

Windows Installation

We provide Pillow binaries for Windows compiled for the matrix of supported Pythons in both 32 and 64-bit versions in the wheel format. These binaries have all of the optional libraries included except for raqm, libimagequant, and libxcb:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow

To install Pillow in MSYS2, see Building on Windows using MSYS2/MinGW.

macOS Installation

We provide binaries for macOS for each of the supported Python versions in the wheel format. These include support for all optional libraries except libimagequant and libxcb. Raqm support requires libraqm, fribidi, and harfbuzz to be installed separately:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow

Linux Installation

We provide binaries for Linux for each of the supported Python versions in the manylinux wheel format. These include support for all optional libraries except libimagequant. Raqm support requires libraqm, fribidi, and harfbuzz to be installed separately:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow

Most major Linux distributions, including Fedora, Debian/Ubuntu and ArchLinux also include Pillow in packages that previously contained PIL e.g. python-imaging.

FreeBSD Installation

Pillow can be installed on FreeBSD via the official Ports or Packages systems:

Ports:

cd /usr/ports/graphics/py-pillow && make install clean

Packages:

pkg install py36-pillow

Note

The Pillow FreeBSD port and packages are tested by the ports team with all supported FreeBSD versions.

Building From Source

Download and extract the compressed archive from PyPI.

External Libraries

Note

You do not need to install all supported external libraries to use Pillow's basic features. Zlib and libjpeg are required by default.

Note

There are Dockerfiles in our Docker images repo to install the dependencies for some operating systems.

Many of Pillow's features require external libraries:

libjpeg provides JPEG functionality.
- Pillow has been tested with libjpeg versions 6b, 8, 9-9d and libjpeg-turbo version 8.
- Starting with Pillow 3.0.0, libjpeg is required by default, but may be disabled with the --disable-jpeg flag.
zlib provides access to compressed PNGs
- Starting with Pillow 3.0.0, zlib is required by default, but may be disabled with the --disable-zlib flag.
libtiff provides compressed TIFF functionality
- Pillow has been tested with libtiff versions 3.x and 4.0-4.1
libfreetype provides type related services
littlecms provides color management
- Pillow version 2.2.1 and below uses liblcms1, Pillow 2.3.0 and above uses liblcms2. Tested with 1.19 and 2.7-2.11.
libwebp provides the WebP format.
- Pillow has been tested with version 0.1.3, which does not read transparent WebP files. Versions 0.3.0 and above support transparency.
tcl/tk provides support for tkinter bitmap and photo images.
openjpeg provides JPEG 2000 functionality.
- Pillow has been tested with openjpeg 2.0.0, 2.1.0, 2.3.1 and 2.4.0.
- Pillow does not support the earlier 1.5 series which ships with Debian Jessie.
libimagequant provides improved color quantization
- Pillow has been tested with libimagequant 2.6-2.13.1
- Libimagequant is licensed GPLv3, which is more restrictive than the Pillow license, therefore we will not be distributing binaries with libimagequant support enabled.
libraqm provides complex text layout support.
- libraqm provides bidirectional text support (using FriBiDi), shaping (using HarfBuzz), and proper script itemization. As a result, Raqm can support most writing systems covered by Unicode.
- libraqm depends on the following libraries: FreeType, HarfBuzz, FriBiDi, make sure that you install them before installing libraqm if not available as package in your system.
- setting text direction or font features is not supported without libraqm.
- libraqm is dynamically loaded in Pillow 5.0.0 and above, so support is available if all the libraries are installed.
- Windows support: Raqm is not included in prebuilt wheels
libxcb provides X11 screengrab support.

Once you have installed the prerequisites, run:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow

If the prerequisites are installed in the standard library locations for your machine (e.g. /usr or /usr/local), no additional configuration should be required. If they are installed in a non-standard location, you may need to configure setuptools to use those locations by editing setup.py or setup.cfg, or by adding environment variables on the command line:

CFLAGS="-I/usr/pkg/include" python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow

If Pillow has been previously built without the required prerequisites, it may be necessary to manually clear the pip cache or build without cache using the --no-cache-dir option to force a build with newly installed external libraries.

Build Options

Environment variable: MAX_CONCURRENCY=n. Pillow can use multiprocessing to build the extension. Setting MAX_CONCURRENCY sets the number of CPUs to use, or can disable parallel building by using a setting of 1. By default, it uses 4 CPUs, or if 4 are not available, as many as are present.
Build flags: --disable-zlib, --disable-jpeg, --disable-tiff, --disable-freetype, --disable-lcms, --disable-webp, --disable-webpmux, --disable-jpeg2000, --disable-imagequant, --disable-xcb. Disable building the corresponding feature even if the development libraries are present on the building machine.
Build flags: --enable-zlib, --enable-jpeg, --enable-tiff, --enable-freetype, --enable-lcms, --enable-webp, --enable-webpmux, --enable-jpeg2000, --enable-imagequant, --enable-xcb. Require that the corresponding feature is built. The build will raise an exception if the libraries are not found. Webpmux (WebP metadata) relies on WebP support. Tcl and Tk also must be used together.
Build flag: --disable-platform-guessing. Skips all of the platform dependent guessing of include and library directories for automated build systems that configure the proper paths in the environment variables (e.g. Buildroot).
Build flag: --debug. Adds a debugging flag to the include and library search process to dump all paths searched for and found to stdout.

Sample usage:

MAX_CONCURRENCY=1 python3 setup.py build_ext --enable-[feature] install

or using pip:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow --global-option="build_ext" --global-option="--enable-[feature]"

Building on macOS

The Xcode command line tools are required to compile portions of Pillow. The tools are installed by running xcode-select --install from the command line. The command line tools are required even if you have the full Xcode package installed. It may be necessary to run sudo xcodebuild -license to accept the license prior to using the tools.

The easiest way to install external libraries is via Homebrew. After you install Homebrew, run:

brew install libtiff libjpeg webp little-cms2

To install libraqm on macOS use Homebrew to install its dependencies:

brew install freetype harfbuzz fribidi

Then see depends/install_raqm_cmake.sh to install libraqm.

Now install Pillow with:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow

or from within the uncompressed source directory:

python3 setup.py install

Building on Windows

We recommend you use prebuilt wheels from PyPI. If you wish to compile Pillow manually, you can use the build scripts in the winbuild directory used for CI testing and development. These scripts require Visual Studio 2017 or newer and NASM.

Building on Windows using MSYS2/MinGW

To build Pillow using MSYS2, make sure you run the MSYS2 MinGW 32-bit or MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit console, not MSYS2 directly.

The following instructions target the 64-bit build, for 32-bit replace all occurrences of mingw-w64-x86_64- with mingw-w64-i686-.

Make sure you have Python and GCC installed:

pacman -S \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-python3 \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-python3-pip \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-python3-setuptools

Prerequisites are installed on MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit with:

pacman -S \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libjpeg-turbo \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libtiff \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-freetype \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-lcms2 \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libwebp \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-openjpeg2 \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libimagequant \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libraqm

Now install Pillow with:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade Pillow

Building on FreeBSD

Note

Only FreeBSD 10 and 11 tested

Make sure you have Python's development libraries installed:

sudo pkg install python3

Prerequisites are installed on FreeBSD 10 or 11 with:

sudo pkg install jpeg-turbo tiff webp lcms2 freetype2 openjpeg harfbuzz fribidi libxcb

Then see depends/install_raqm_cmake.sh to install libraqm.

Building on Linux

If you didn't build Python from source, make sure you have Python's development libraries installed.

In Debian or Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install python3-dev python3-setuptools

In Fedora, the command is:

sudo dnf install python3-devel redhat-rpm-config

Note

redhat-rpm-config is required on Fedora 23, but not earlier versions.

Prerequisites for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS - 20.04 LTS are installed with:

sudo apt-get install libtiff5-dev libjpeg8-dev libopenjp2-7-dev zlib1g-dev \
    libfreetype6-dev liblcms2-dev libwebp-dev tcl8.6-dev tk8.6-dev python3-tk \
    libharfbuzz-dev libfribidi-dev libxcb1-dev

Then see depends/install_raqm.sh to install libraqm.

Prerequisites are installed on recent Red Hat, CentOS or Fedora with:

sudo dnf install libtiff-devel libjpeg-devel openjpeg2-devel zlib-devel \
    freetype-devel lcms2-devel libwebp-devel tcl-devel tk-devel \
    harfbuzz-devel fribidi-devel libraqm-devel libimagequant-devel libxcb-devel

Note that the package manager may be yum or DNF, depending on the exact distribution.

See also the Dockerfiles in the Test Infrastructure repo (https://github.com/python-pillow/docker-images) for a known working install process for other tested distros.

Building on Android

Basic Android support has been added for compilation within the Termux environment. The dependencies can be installed by:

pkg install -y python ndk-sysroot clang make \
    libjpeg-turbo

This has been tested within the Termux app on ChromeOS, on x86.

Platform Support

Current platform support for Pillow. Binary distributions are contributed for each release on a volunteer basis, but the source should compile and run everywhere platform support is listed. In general, we aim to support all current versions of Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Continuous Integration Targets

These platforms are built and tested for every change.

Operating system	Tested Python versions	Tested architecture
Alpine	3.8	x86-64
Arch	3.8	x86-64
Amazon Linux 2	3.7	x86-64
CentOS 7	3.6	x86-64
CentOS 8	3.6	x86-64
Debian 10 Buster	3.7	x86
Fedora 32	3.8	x86-64
Fedora 33	3.9	x86-64
macOS 10.15 Catalina	3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, PyPy3	x86-64
Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS (Xenial)	3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, PyPy3	x86-64
Ubuntu Linux 18.04 LTS (Bionic)	3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, PyPy3	x86-64
Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS (Focal)	3.8	x86-64
Windows Server 2016	3.6	x86-64
Windows Server 2019	3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9 --------------------------+ PyPy3 --------------------------+ 3.8/MinGW	x86, x86-64 -----------------------+ x86 -----------------------+ x86, x86-64

Other Platforms

These platforms have been reported to work at the versions mentioned.

Note

Contributors please test Pillow on your platform then update this document and send a pull request.

Operating system	Tested Python versions	Latest tested Pillow version	Tested processors
macOS 11.0 Big Sur	3.8, 3.9 ------------------------------+ 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9	8.0.1 --------------------------------+ 8.0.1	arm -----------------------+ x86-64
macOS 10.15 Catalina	3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9 ------------------------------+ 3.5	8.0.1 --------------------------------+ 7.2.0	x86-64
macOS 10.14 Mojave	3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8 ------------------------------+ 2.7 ------------------------------+ 3.4	7.2.0 --------------------------------+ 6.0.0 --------------------------------+ 5.4.1	x86-64
macOS 10.13 High Sierra	2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6	4.2.1	x86-64
macOS 10.12 Sierra	2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6	4.1.1	x86-64
Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan	2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 ------------------------------+ 3.3	5.4.1 --------------------------------+ 4.1.0	x86-64
Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks	2.7, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4	3.0.0	x86-64
Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion	2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3		x86-64
Redhat Linux 6	2.6		x86
CentOS 6.3	2.7, 3.3		x86
Fedora 23	2.7, 3.4	3.1.0	x86-64
Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS (Precise)	2.6, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 PyPy5.3.1, PyPy3 v2.4.0 ------------------------------+ 2.7 ------------------------------+ 2.7, 3.2	3.4.1 --------------------------------+ 4.3.0 --------------------------------+ 3.4.1	x86,x86-64 -----------------------+ x86-64 -----------------------+ ppc
Ubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS (Lucid)	2.6	2.3.0	x86,x86-64
Debian 8.2 Jessie	2.7, 3.4	3.1.0	x86-64
Raspbian Jessie	2.7, 3.4	3.1.0	arm
Raspbian Stretch	2.7, 3.5	4.0.0	arm
Gentoo Linux	2.7, 3.2	2.1.0	x86-64
FreeBSD 11.1	2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6	4.3.0	x86-64
FreeBSD 10.3	2.7, 3.4, 3.5	4.2.0	x86-64
FreeBSD 10.2	2.7, 3.4	3.1.0	x86-64
Windows 10	3.7	7.1.0	x86-64
Windows 8.1 Pro	2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4	2.4.0	x86,x86-64
Windows 8 Pro	2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4a3	2.2.0	x86,x86-64
Windows 7 Professional	3.7	7.0.0	x86,x86-64
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise	3.3		x86-64

Old Versions

You can download old distributions from the release history at PyPI and by direct URL access eg. https://pypi.org/project/Pillow/1.0/.

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installation.rst

installation.rst

Installation

Warnings

Python Support

Basic Installation

Windows Installation

macOS Installation

Linux Installation

FreeBSD Installation

Building From Source

External Libraries

Build Options

Building on macOS

Building on Windows

Building on Windows using MSYS2/MinGW

Building on FreeBSD

Building on Linux

Building on Android

Platform Support

Continuous Integration Targets

Other Platforms

Old Versions

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installation.rst

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installation.rst

File metadata and controls

Installation

Warnings

Python Support

Basic Installation

Windows Installation

macOS Installation

Linux Installation

FreeBSD Installation

Building From Source

External Libraries

Build Options

Building on macOS

Building on Windows

Building on Windows using MSYS2/MinGW

Building on FreeBSD

Building on Linux

Building on Android

Platform Support

Continuous Integration Targets

Other Platforms

Old Versions