Installation¶

Super-Quick (Mac / Linux)¶

To install or upgrade PlatformIO paste that at a Terminal prompt (MAY require administrator access sudo):

python -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/platformio/platformio/develop/scripts/get-platformio.py)"

Local Download (Mac / Linux / Windows)¶

To install or upgrade PlatformIO, download (save as…) get-platformio.py script. Then run the following (MAY require administrator access sudo):

# change directory to folder where is located downloaded "get-platformio.py"
cd /path/to/dir/where/is/located/get-platformio.py/script

# run it
python get-platformio.py

On Windows OS it may look like:

# change directory to folder where is located downloaded "get-platformio.py"
cd C:\path\to\dir\where\is\located\get-platformio.py\script

# run it
C:\Python27\python.exe get-platformio.py

Prerequisites¶

1. Please remove existing PlatformIO Core environment folder if exists. See above how to get a path.

2. Please check that you have a valid Python interpreter running a next command in system terminal. Python 2.7.9+ or Python 3.5+ is recommended.

   python --version
   
   # or, for Unix (Linux, Mac), you can use `python2` or `python3` aliases
   python2 --version
   python3 --version
   

   Warning

   Windows Users: If you already tried to install PlatformIO IDE and did not get success, please open system’s Control Panel > Installed Programs, and check if PlatformIO IDE tried to install an own isolated Python 2.7 version. Please uninstall it. Also is good to uninstall all Python interpreters from a system and install manually the latest Python using Install Python Interpreter guide.

3. Make sure virtualenv --help command exists in a system, otherwise, please install it manually using pip install virtualenv or pip2 install virtualenv command.

   If pip (Python Package Manager) does not exists, you have to install it manually. See https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/

Creating¶

1. Create a folder which contains all the necessary executables to use the packages that PIO Core would need using virtualenv command:

   virtualenv /path/to/.platformio/penv
   
   # If you want to use a custom Python interpreter
   virtualenv --python=/path/to/custom/python /path/to/.platformio/penv
   
   # EXAMPLES
   # Windows
   virtualenv C:\Users\UserName\.platformio\penv
   virtualenv --python=C:\Python27\python.exe  C:\Users\UserName\.platformio\penv
   
   # Unix (Linux, Mac)
   virtualenv ~/.platformio/penv
   virtualenv -p python3 ~/.platformio/penv
   

2. Activate virtual environment

   # Windows
   C:\Users\UserName\.platformio\penv
   
   # Unix (Linux, Mac)
   source /path/to/.platformio/penv/bin/activate
   # or
   . /path/to/.platformio/penv/bin/activate
   

3. Install PIO Core into virtual environment

   pip install -U platformio
   

If you plan to use PIO Core commands outside virtual environment, please Install Shell Commands.

Method 1¶

You can export PlatformIO executables’ directory to the PATH environmental variable. This method will allow you to execute platformio commands from any terminal emulator as long as you’re logged in as the user PlatformIO is installed and configured for.

If you use Bash as your default shell, you can do it by editing either ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile and adding the following line:

export PATH=$PATH:~/.platformio/penv/bin

If you use Zsh, you can either edit ~/.zprofile and add the code above, or for supporting both, Bash and Zsh, you can first edit ~/.profile and add the code above, then edit ~/.zprofile and add the following line:

emulate sh -c '. ~/.profile'

After everything’s done, just restart your session (log out and log back in) and you’re good to go.

If you don’t know the difference between the two, check out this page.

Method 2¶

Go to the PlatformIO menu → Settings → PlatformIO IDE, scroll down to the Custom PATH for `platformio` command and enter the following: ~/.platformio/penv/bin. After you’ve done that, you’ll need to go to the PlatformIO menu → Settings → PlatformIO IDE Terminal, scroll down to the Toggles section and uncheck the Login Shell checkbox. Finally, restart your editor/IDE and check out the result.

Method 3¶

You can create system-wide symlinks. This method is not recommended if you have multiple users on your computer because the symlinks will be broken for other users and they will get errors while executing PlatformIO commands. If that’s not a problem, open your system terminal app and paste these commands (MAY require administrator access sudo):

ln -s ~/.platformio/penv/bin/platformio /usr/local/bin/platformio
ln -s ~/.platformio/penv/bin/pio /usr/local/bin/pio
ln -s ~/.platformio/penv/bin/piodebuggdb /usr/local/bin/piodebuggdb

After that, you should be able to run PlatformIO from terminal. No restart is required.