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.
Note
Pillow < 2.0.0 supports Python versions 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7.
Note
Pillow >= 2.0.0 < 4.0.0 supports Python versions 2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5
Note
Pillow >= 4.0.0 < 5.0.0 supports Python versions 2.7, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6
Note
Pillow >= 5.0.0 supports Python versions 2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6
Note
The following instructions will install Pillow with support for most common image formats. See :ref:`external-libraries` for a full list of external libraries supported.
Install Pillow with :command:`pip`:
$ pip install Pillow
We provide Pillow binaries for Windows compiled for the matrix of supported Pythons in both 32 and 64-bit versions in wheel, egg, and executable installers. These binaries have all of the optional libraries included except for raqm and libimagequant:
> pip install Pillow
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. Raqm support requires libraqm, fribidi, and harfbuzz to be installed separately:
$ pip install Pillow
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:
$ pip install Pillow
Most major Linux distributions, including Fedora, Debian/Ubuntu and
ArchLinux also include Pillow in packages that previously contained
PIL e.g. python-imaging.
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 py27-pillow
Note
The Pillow FreeBSD port and packages are tested by the ports team with all supported FreeBSD versions and against Python 2.7 and 3.x.
Download and extract the compressed archive from PyPI.
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 scripts to install the dependencies for some operating
systems included in the depends directory. Also see the
Dockerfiles in our docker images repo.
Many of Pillow's features require external libraries:
- libjpeg provides JPEG functionality.
- Pillow has been tested with libjpeg versions 6b, 8, 9, 9a, and 9b and libjpeg-turbo version 8.
- Starting with Pillow 3.0.0, libjpeg is required by default, but
may be disabled with the
--disable-jpegflag.
- zlib provides access to compressed PNGs
- Starting with Pillow 3.0.0, zlib is required by default, but may
be disabled with the
--disable-zlibflag.
- Starting with Pillow 3.0.0, zlib is required by default, but may
be disabled with the
- libtiff provides compressed TIFF functionality
- Pillow has been tested with libtiff versions 3.x and 4.0
- 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.
- 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 and 2.1.0.
- Pillow does not support the earlier 1.5 series which ships with Ubuntu <= 14.04 and Debian Jessie.
- libimagequant provides improved color quantization
- Pillow has been tested with libimagequant 2.6-2.11
- Libimagequant is licensed GPLv3, which is more restrictive than the Pillow license, therefore we will not be distributing binaries with libimagequant support enabled.
- Windows support: Libimagequant requires VS2013/MSVC 18 to compile, so it is unlikely to work with any Python prior to 3.5 on Windows.
- 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 install 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 support is currently unsupported on Windows.
Once you have installed the prerequisites, run:
$ pip install Pillow
If the prerequisites are installed in the standard library locations for your machine (e.g. :file:`/usr` or :file:`/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 :file:`setup.py` or :file:`setup.cfg`, or by adding environment variables on the command line:
$ CFLAGS="-I/usr/pkg/include" pip install 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.
- Environment variable:
MAX_CONCURRENCY=n. By default, Pillow will use multiprocessing to build the extension on all available CPUs, but not more than 4. SettingMAX_CONCURRENCYto 1 will disable parallel building. - Build flags:
--disable-zlib,--disable-jpeg,--disable-tiff,--disable-freetype,--disable-tcl,--disable-tk,--disable-lcms,--disable-webp,--disable-webpmux,--disable-jpeg2000,--disable-imagequant. 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-tcl,--enable-tk,--enable-lcms,--enable-webp,--enable-webpmux,--enable-jpeg2000,--enable-imagequant. 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 python setup.py build_ext --enable-[feature] install
or using pip:
$ pip install pillow --global-option="build_ext" --global-option="--enable-[feature]"
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:
$ pip install Pillow
or from within the uncompressed source directory:
$ python setup.py install
We don't recommend trying to build on Windows. It is a maze of twisty
passages, mostly dead ends. There are build scripts and notes for the
Windows build in the winbuild directory.
Note
Only FreeBSD 10 and 11 tested
Make sure you have Python's development libraries installed.:
$ sudo pkg install python2
Or for Python 3:
$ 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
Then see depends/install_raqm_cmake.sh to install libraqm.
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 python-dev python-setuptools
Or for Python 3:
$ sudo apt-get install python3-dev python3-setuptools
In Fedora, the command is:
$ sudo dnf install python-devel redhat-rpm-config
Or for Python 3:
$ sudo dnf install python3-devel redhat-rpm-config
Note
redhat-rpm-config is required on Fedora 23, but not earlier versions.
Prerequisites are installed on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with:
$ sudo apt-get install libtiff5-dev libjpeg8-dev zlib1g-dev \
libfreetype6-dev liblcms2-dev libwebp-dev libharfbuzz-dev libfribidi-dev \
tcl8.6-dev tk8.6-dev python-tk
Then see depends/install_raqm.sh to install libraqm.
Prerequisites are installed on recent RedHat Centos or Fedora with:
$ sudo dnf install libtiff-devel libjpeg-devel zlib-devel freetype-devel \
lcms2-devel libwebp-devel tcl-devel tk-devel libraqm-devel \
libimagequant-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.
Basic Android support has been added for compilation within the Termux environment. The dependencies can be installed by:
$ pkg -y install python python-dev ndk-sysroot clang make \
libjpeg-turbo-dev
This has been tested within the Termux app on ChromeOS, on x86.
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.
These platforms are built and tested for every change.
| Operating system | Tested Python versions | Tested Architecture |
| Alpine | 2.7 | x86-64 |
| Arch | 2.7 | x86-64 |
| Amazon | 2.7 | x86-64 |
| Centos 6 | 2.7 | x86-64 |
| Centos 7 | 2.7 | x86-64 |
| Debian Stretch | 2.7 | x86 |
| Fedora 25 | 2.7 | x86-64 |
| Fedora 26 | 2.7 | x86-64 |
| Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite* | 2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 | x86-64 |
| Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS | 2.7 | x86-64 |
| Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS | 2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, pypy, pypy3 | x86-64 |
| 2.7 | x86 | |
| Windows Server 2012 R2 | 2.7, 3.4 | x86, x86-64 |
| pypy, 3.5/mingw | x86 |
* Mac OS X CI is not run for every commit, but is run for every release.
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 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, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 | 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 | 2.6, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 PyPy5.3.1, PyPy3 v2.4.0 | 3.4.1 | x86,x86-64 |
| 2.7 | 4.3.0 | x86-64 | |
| 2.7, 3.2 | 3.4.1 | ppc | |
| Ubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS | 2.6 | 2.3.0 | x86,x86-64 |
| Debian 8.2 Jessie | 2.7, 3.4 | 3.1.0 | x86-64 |
| Raspian Jessie | 2.7, 3.4 | 3.1.0 | 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 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 Pro | 2.7, 3.2, 3.3 | 3.4.1 | x86-64 |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise | 3.3 | x86-64 |
You can download old distributions from PyPI. Only the latest major releases for Python 2.x and 3.x are visible, but all releases are available by direct URL access e.g. https://pypi.org/project/Pillow/1.0/.