To get acquainted with PyCharm, you can download and install its trial version for free. This trial version is available for 30 days, whereupon you need to obtain and register a license.
On this page:
- PyCharm editions
- Downloading and installing PyCharm
- Starting PyCharm on the various platforms
- Licensing
- Importing PyCharm usage preferences from a previous version
PyCharm editions
There are two PyCharm editions: Community and Professional.
The Community Edition is free and open source but has less features. The Professional Edition is commercial but provides an outstanding set of tools and features. (You can evaluate PyCharm Professional for free for 30 days.)
For more information,
see feature-by-feature
Editions comparison
matrix.
Downloading and installing PyCharm
You can download the latest version of PyCharm from the JetBrains website.
(There are the versions for Windows, OS X and Linux.)
Depending on your operating system:
- Windows: Run the
.exe
file and follow the instructions of PyCharm Setup wizard. - OS X: Open
- Linux: Unpack the
.tar.gz
archive into any directory within your home directory.
Refer to the section Starting PyCharm on the various platforms for details.
Starting PyCharm on the various platforms
Starting PyCharm on Windows
If during the installation you selected to create a shortcut on your desktop, double-click that shortcut.
Otherwise, go to the <PyCharm>\bin
folder
(e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 14.0.2\bin
) and
run idea.exe
or idea.bat
.
See also, Importing PyCharm usage preferences from a previous version.
Starting PyCharm on OS X
-
Make sure that you have an appropriate version of Java (JRE or JDK) installed.
This may be Java 6 from Apple, or Java 7 or a later version from Oracle.
(You can try to start PyCharm right away. If there is no Java on your computer, PyCharm will notify you about that.)
-
If you are using Java 7 or 8:
-
Copy the file
idea.properties
from/Applications/PyCharm<version>.app/Contents/bin
to~/Library/Preferences/PyCharm<version>
-
Open
~/Library/Preferences/PyCharm<version>/idea.properties
for editing. -
Change
JVMVersion=1.6*
toJVMVersion=1.7*
if you are using Java 7 or toJVMVersion=1.8*
if you are using Java 8. - Save and close the file.
-
Copy the file
-
Go to your
/Applications
folder and run the PyCharm application.
See also, Importing PyCharm usage preferences from a previous version.
Starting PyCharm on Linux
Before you start
Make sure that you have an Oracle JRE or JDK version 6 or later installed on your computer. Refer to the section Installing Oracle JDK.
Launching PyCharm
To launch PyCharm on Linux, follow these steps:
-
Download the
pycharm-professional or pycharm-community-*.tar.gz
file from the Downloadpage.
-
Unpack the
pycharm-professional or pycharm-community-*.tar.gz
file using the following command:tar xfz pycharm-professional or pycharm-community-*.tar.gz
-
Because running PyCharm from wherever you downloaded the file to may be inconvenient, it is recommended that you
move the extracted or unpacked archive folder to the desired location using the
mv
command in one of the following formats:-
For example:
mv <path to extracted archive folder> <new archive folder>
mv /downloads/pycharm-professional or pycharm-community-* my/desired/location
-
For example:
mv <path to pycharm-professional or pycharm-community-*.tar.gz> <new archive folder>
mv /downloads/pycharm-professional or pycharm-community-*.tar.gz my/desired/location
-
-
Switch to the
bin
directory in the new location:For example,cd <new archive folder>/pycharm-professional or pycharm-community-*/bin
cd my/desired/location/pycharm-professional or pycharm-community-*/bin
- Run
pycharm-professional or pycharm-community.sh
from thebin
subdirectory. - Install Oracle (Sun) JDK 1.6 or higher if your distribution does not contain it.
Follow the provider's instructions at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html
.
Installing Oracle JDK
-
Use the Debian repository. In the Command prompt, type the following sequence of commands:
sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin
java -version
to check that installation is successful.
-
Download and install JDK from Oracle official site.
- Download Oracle (Sun) JDK 1.6
for not RPM-based platforms.
- Follow the installation instructions
.
- Specify the directory where JDK is installed through the JAVA_HOME
variable.
- Download Oracle (Sun) JDK 1.6
Additional launchers
Additionally, you can create a desktop shortcut and a command-line launcher, and use them to start PyCharm:
See also, Importing PyCharm usage preferences from a previous version.
Creating a desktop shortcut
To create a desktop shortcut for PyCharm, use the Create Desktop Entry command. This command is available:
- In the Customize PyCharm wizard - when you run PyCharm for the first time.
- On the Welcome screen: .
- In the main menu: .
You can choose to create the shortcut:
-
For all of your computer users:
In this case, the
jetbrains-idea.desktop
entry file is created in/usr/share/applications
. -
Only for yourself:
The
jetbrains-idea.desktop
entry file is created in~/.gnome/apps
and~/.local/share/applications
.
Licensing
PyCharm provides several types of licenses, to flexibly meet the demands of the customers. In particular, there are such licences as:
- Personal (for individual developers)
- Commercial (for companies and organizations)
- Students (for students and teachers)
- Classroom (for education and training)
- Open-source (for open-source projects)
Besides that, PyCharm provides additional licensing options.
Find the detailed information about licensing terms and additional options on the
Buy&Renew page.
Getting Professional Edition for free
- If you contribute to an open-source project, show us your commits and get a personal license for free!
- If you are a student, ask your instructor or trainer to get a classroom license for free!
- If you work for a company, convince your manager to buy a commercial license!
Registering your license key
- On the main menu, choose . Note that menu action is not available for EAP builds.
- In the PyCharm License Activation dialog box, select the desired option:
- Enter license key: specify the user name and license key.
- Enter license server address: specify the license server. If you don't know the address, click Discover.
- JetBrains Account: specify the user name or e-mail address and enter the password.
If you don't have JetBrains account for the moment, create it here
and get an ability of direct managing your licenses plus a lot of other benefits.
- Evaluate for free for 30 days: select this option to get free evaluation license.
- Click OK.
License tickets from the License Server
If you are using a license distributed with the JetBrains License Server,
you can get two types of license tickets. By default, the server issues a floating license ticket for you,
which lasts as long as you are connected to the server. If you need to work offline, you can get a permanent license ticket.
The table below describes the differences between the two types of the license tickets.
Ticket | Details | Advantages | Disadvantages |
---|---|---|---|
Floating license ticket(default) | At startup, PyCharm finds the License server in the local network and requests a ticket, which is returned to the server and becomes available to other users when PyCharm is closed. Both obtaining and returning of the ticket are done automatically. | Number of licenses on the license server can be less than the number of PyCharm users. For example, if there are 60 engineers who use PyCharm but only a maximum of 50 of them can use PyCharm concurrently, then 50 licenses on the license server would be enough. | Connection to the License Server via a local network or VPN is required to start PyCharm. |
Permanent license ticket | Once obtained, a permanent ticket stays on a client machine. It is not available to other users until it is returned from the client. Both obtaining and returning of the ticket are done manually on the client or by a license server administrator. | The client do not need network connection to start PyCharm. | The license obtained with a permanent ticket remains unavailable for other users even if the client do not use it. |
Getting a permanent license ticket
You need a permanent license ticket to be able to work with PyCharm offline (or outside the local network) with a license from the License Server. After specifying the license server address, the command appears on the menu.
- On the main menu, choose .
- In the dialog box that opens, type your email address, to which your activation key will be sent.
- Click OK.
As soon as the permanent license ticket is successfully obtained, you can return it back to the server with the command that appears in the menu.
Troubleshooting
A license key can be rejected by the software in certain cases. The table below outlines the reasons of license rejections, and the possible ways to solve the problem.
Reason | Solution |
---|---|
Wrong user name | Make sure that you are using the User Name which is specified in your license certificate email. If a license is registered in your company name, it will not work with your personal name. |
Misspelled User Name/License Key | To avoid misspellings, we recommend that you copy your User Name and license key from the license certificate e-mail rather than enter them manually in the software. You can do so by using the Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Insert and Ctrl+V or Shift+Insert shortcuts. |
A license key does not qualify for upgrade to a higher version | If your license key does not work with the newly installed version of the software, please make sure that your current license key allows you to upgrade for free to the latest version. If it does not, please contact sales (sales@jetbrains.com) in order to upgrade your license. |
Concurrent use of a license key | Make sure that your license key is not being used by another developer in your company at the same time. Concurrent use of a single license on multiple instances of the software is restricted by our software license agreements (unless you have obtained a floating license) and is prevented by software functionality. |
Importing PyCharm usage preferences from a previous version
To make your transition to a newer version unnoticeable, PyCharm lets you import your usage preferences from its previous installation.
When you start PyCharm for the first time, the Complete Installation dialog opens, and you can import your usage preferences from the previous version of PyCharm by selecting one of the following options:
- I want to import my settings from a previous version (<path>). If this option is present in the dialog, the directory that contains the PyCharm settings is found at its default location. (The corresponding path is shown within the option name in parentheses.) Most likely, this is the option that you want.
-
I want to import my settings from a custom location.
You may have the directory with the settings
available
but not at its default location.
To import the settings in this case, you can specify the folder with the settings
(if you know where it is) , or an installation folder of the previous PyCharm version.
To do that, click
and select the folder in the dialog that opens .
See also, Exporting and Importing Settings.