Install PyQt6 on macOS

Step-by-step guide to installing PyQt6 on macOS for Python GUI development
by Martin Fitzpatrick Last updated PyQt6 Installation Guides

This tutorial is also available for PyQt5 , PySide2 , PySide6 and Tkinter

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Before you start the PyQt6 tutorial you will need to have a working installation of PyQt6 on your system. If you don't have either set up yet, the following steps will guide you through how to install PyQt6 on macOS.

This guide is also available for Linux and Windows.

Note that the following instructions are only for installation of the GPL licensed version of PyQt. If you need to use PyQt in a non-GPL project you will need to purchase an alternative license from Riverbank Computing to release your software.

Table of contents

Install PyQt6 on macOS Using pip

If you already have a working installation of Python 3 on macOS, you can go ahead and install PyQt6 as for any other Python package, using the following --

bash 
pip3 install pyqt6

If you don't have an installation of Python 3, you will need to install one first. You can download macOS installers for Python 3 from the Python homepage. Once installed, you should be able to use the pip3 install command above to install PyQt6.

Install PyQt6 on macOS Using Homebrew

Another alternative is to use Homebrew. Homebrew is a package manager for command-line software on macOS. Homebrew has both Python 3 and PyQt6 available in their repositories.

Homebrew -- the missing package manager for macOS Homebrew -- the missing package manager for macOS

To install Homebrew, run the following from the command line --

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

This is also available to copy and paste from the Homebrew homepage.

Once Homebrew is installed you can then install Python 3 with --

bash 
brew install python3

With Python installed, you can then install PyQt6 as normal, using pip3 install pyqt6, or alternatively choose to install it using Homebrew with --

bash 
brew install pyqt6

Verify Your PyQt6 Installation

To confirm that PyQt6 has been installed correctly on your Mac, open a terminal and run --

bash 
python3 -c "import PyQt6.QtWidgets; print('PyQt6 installed successfully')"

If you see PyQt6 installed successfully printed without errors, you're ready to start building Python GUI applications with PyQt6. Head over to the PyQt6 tutorial to get started.

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Packaging Python Applications with PyInstaller by Martin Fitzpatrick

This step-by-step guide walks you through packaging your own Python applications from simple examples to complete installers and signed executables.

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Martin Fitzpatrick

Install PyQt6 on macOS was written by Martin Fitzpatrick.

Martin Fitzpatrick has been developing Python/Qt apps for 8 years. Building desktop applications to make data-analysis tools more user-friendly, Python was the obvious choice. Starting with Tk, later moving to wxWidgets and finally adopting PyQt. Martin founded PythonGUIs to provide easy to follow GUI programming tutorials to the Python community. He has written a number of popular Python books on the subject.

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