Miniforge Documentation

If conda or mamba are not recognized in your standard terminal, you need to initialize your shell.

On Windows, run this from the Miniforge Prompt. On Unix, if you used a non-interactive install, call the command using its full path (e.g., ~/miniforge3/bin/conda init).

conda init
# Or for Unix non-interactive installs:
~/miniforge3/bin/conda init

To build a Miniforge installer on Windows, you must have Git Bash or another MINGW64 shell installed. Set the TARGET_PLATFORM to win-64 and run the build and test scripts.

export TARGET_PLATFORM=win-64

bash scripts/build.sh
bash scripts/test.sh

For automated environments, download the installer and run it in batch mode using the -b flag. You must then manually source the profile scripts to enable conda and mamba commands in the current shell session.

# Linux example
wget -O Miniforge3.sh "https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge/releases/latest/download/Miniforge3-$(uname)-$(uname -m).sh"
bash Miniforge3.sh -b -p "${HOME}/conda"

# Activate conda and mamba
source "${HOME}/conda/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"
source "${HOME}/conda/etc/profile.d/mamba.sh"

# Activate base
conda activate

Download and execute the Windows installer (Miniforge3-Windows-x86_64.exe). The recommended way to use the installed software is via the "Miniforge Prompt" available in the Start menu.

Important Notes:

• Avoid installing in directories containing special characters or spaces to prevent issues.
• To use conda and mamba in other terminals, you must run conda init from the Miniforge Prompt, or manually add C:\Users\myusername\miniforge3\condabin\ to your PATH environment variable.

Download the appropriate shell script for your architecture using curl or wget and execute it with bash.

Interactive Install: The script will prompt you to initialize conda for your shell, which is the recommended workflow.

Non-interactive Install: Use the -b flag for automated environments (like CI). Note that in non-interactive mode, conda initialization is not performed automatically.

# Download and run for Linux/macOS
curl -L -O "https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge/releases/latest/download/Miniforge3-$(uname)-$(uname -m).sh"
bash Miniforge3-$(uname)-$(uname -m).sh

To build and test a Miniforge installer directly on a Linux host, set the TARGET_PLATFORM environment variable. After running the test script, ensure you delete the installation directory to avoid errors in subsequent test runs.

# Configuration
export TARGET_PLATFORM=linux-64

bash scripts/build.sh
bash scripts/test.sh

To construct a custom Miniforge installer using Docker, set the ARCH and DOCKERIMAGE environment variables before running the build script. This is useful for creating installers for specific architectures like aarch64.

# Configuration
export ARCH=aarch64
export DOCKERIMAGE=condaforge/linux-anvil-aarch64

bash build_miniforge.sh

If you are using legacy hardware or operating systems, specific older versions of Miniforge are required for compatibility:

• macOS 10.13-10.15: Use version 26.1.1-3.
• macOS 10.9-10.12: Use version 24.3.0-0.
• glibc 2.12-2.16: Use version 24.3.0-0.

By default, Miniforge activates the base environment upon shell startup. To prevent this and keep your shell clean, you can disable automatic activation.

conda config --set auto_activate_base false

To completely remove Miniforge on macOS or Linux, follow these three steps:

1. Reverse shell modifications: Use conda init --reverse to clean up your shell configuration files.
2. Remove the installation directory: Delete the folder where the base environment was installed.
3. Remove configuration files: Delete any remaining .condarc or .conda directories in your home folder.

# 1. Reverse shell changes
conda init --reverse --dry-run
conda init --reverse

# 2. Remove base environment folder
CONDA_BASE_ENVIRONMENT="$(conda info --base)"
rm -rf "${CONDA_BASE_ENVIRONMENT}"

# 3. Remove config files
rm -f "${HOME}/.condarc"
rm -fr "${HOME}/.conda"