How do I prevent Conda from activating the base environment by default?

436
votes

I recently installed anaconda2 on my Mac. By default Conda is configured to activate the base environment when I open a fresh terminal session.

I want access to the Conda commands (i.e. I want the path to Conda added to my $PATH which Conda does when initialised so that's fine).

However I don't ordinarily program in python, and I don't want Conda to activate the base environment by default.

When first executing conda init from the prompt, Conda adds the following to my .bash_profile:

# >>> conda initialize >>>
# !! Contents within this block are managed by 'conda init' !!
__conda_setup="$('/Users/geoff/anaconda2/bin/conda' 'shell.bash' 'hook' 2> /dev/null)"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    eval "$__conda_setup"
else
if [ -f "/Users/geoff/anaconda2/etc/profile.d/conda.sh" ]; then
    . "/Users/geoff/anaconda2/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"
else
    export PATH="/Users/geoff/anaconda2/bin:$PATH"
fi
# fi
unset __conda_setup
# <<< conda initialize <<<

If I comment out the whole block, then I can't activate any Conda environments.

I tried to comment out the whole block except for

export PATH="/Users/geoff/anaconda2/bin:$PATH"

But then when I started a new session and tried to activate an environment, I got this error message:

CommandNotFoundError: Your shell has not been properly configured to use 'conda activate'.

This question (and others like it) are helpful, but doesn't ultimately answer my question and is more suited for linux users.

To be clear, I'm not asking to remove the (base) from my $PS1 I'm asking for Conda not to activate base when I open a terminal session.

9
bashconda
Have you tried to use source activate instead? aka "the oldschool method" – jena
this question is so useful that should be in the anaconda documentation IMO – fabiob
@fabiob Some of the comments in the accepted answer explain where the information can be found. In my opinion it should be one of the first things you learn in the tutorial. Beginners shouldn't have to go pouring over the documentation for such a simple and, evidently, extremely common request. – DryLabRebel

9 Answers

893
votes

I have conda 4.6 with a similar block of code that was added by conda. In my case, there's a conda configuration setting to disable the automatic base activation:

conda config --set auto_activate_base false

The first time you run it, it'll create a ./condarc in your home directory with that setting to override the default.

This wouldn't de-clutter your .bash_profile but it's a cleaner solution without manual editing that section that conda manages.

45
votes

There're 3 ways to achieve this after conda 4.6. (The last method has the highest priority.)

  1. Use sub-command conda config to change the setting.

    conda config --set auto_activate_base false

  2. In fact, the former conda config sub-command is changing configuration file .condarc. We can modify .condarc directly. Add following content into .condarc under your home directory,

    # auto_activate_base (bool)
#   Automatically activate the base environment during shell
#   initialization. for `conda init`
auto_activate_base: false

  3. Set environment variable CONDA_AUTO_ACTIVATE_BASE in the shell's init file. (.bashrc for bash, .zshrc for zsh)

    CONDA_AUTO_ACTIVATE_BASE=false

    To convert from the condarc file-based configuration parameter name to the environment variable parameter name, make the name all uppercase and prepend CONDA_. For example, conda’s always_yes configuration parameter can be specified using a CONDA_ALWAYS_YES environment variable.

    The environment settings take precedence over corresponding settings in .condarc file.

References

33
votes

The answer depends a little bit on the version of conda that you have installed. For versions of conda >= 4.4, it should be enough to deactivate the conda environment after the initialization, so add

conda deactivate

right underneath

# <<< conda initialize <<<
21
votes

So in the end I found that if I commented out the Conda initialisation block like so:

# >>> conda initialize >>>
# !! Contents within this block are managed by 'conda init' !!
# __conda_setup="$('/Users/geoff/anaconda2/bin/conda' 'shell.bash' 'hook' 2> /dev/null)"
# if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    # eval "$__conda_setup"
# else
if [ -f "/Users/geoff/anaconda2/etc/profile.d/conda.sh" ]; then
    . "/Users/geoff/anaconda2/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"
else
    export PATH="/Users/geoff/anaconda2/bin:$PATH"
fi
# fi
# unset __conda_setup
# <<< conda initialize <<<

It works exactly how I want. That is, Conda is available to activate an environment if I want, but doesn't activate by default.

14
votes

To disable auto activation of conda base environment in terminal:

conda config --set auto_activate_base false

To activate conda base environment:

conda activate
0
votes

If you want to keep your bashrc simple, you can remove all the conda init generated clutter, and keep only a single line:

. "/Users/geoff/anaconda2/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"

See Recommended change to enable conda in your shell.

This will make the conda command available without activating the base environment.

If you want to use your bashrc on other systems where conda is not installed in the same path, you can keep the if/fi lines as well to avoid error messages, i.e.:

if [ -f "/Users/geoff/anaconda2/etc/profile.d/conda.sh" ]; then
    . "/Users/geoff/anaconda2/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"
fi
-1
votes

One thing that hasn't been pointed out, is that there is little to no difference between not having an active environment and and activating the base environment, if you just want to run applications from Conda's (Python's) scripts directory (as @DryLabRebel wants).

You can install and uninstall via conda and conda shows the base environment as active - which essentially it is:

> echo $Env:CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV
> conda env list
# conda environments:
#
base                  *  F:\scoop\apps\miniconda3\current

> conda activate
> echo $Env:CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV
base
> conda env list
# conda environments:
#
base                  *  F:\scoop\apps\miniconda3\current
-2
votes

This might be a bug of the recent anaconda. What works for me:

step1: vim /anaconda/bin/activate, it shows:

 #!/bin/sh                                                                                
 _CONDA_ROOT="/anaconda"
 # Copyright (C) 2012 Anaconda, Inc
 # SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
 \. "$_CONDA_ROOT/etc/profile.d/conda.sh" || return $?
 conda activate "$@"

step2: comment out the last line: # conda activate "$@"

-3
votes

I faced the same problem. Initially I deleted the .bash_profile but this is not the right way. After installing anaconda it is showing the instructions clearly for this problem. Please check the image for solution provided by Anaconda