How to Force pip to Reinstall a Package

Ben Cook • Posted 2020-12-26 • Last updated 2021-10-15

Once in a while, a Python package gets corrupted on your machine and you need to force pip to reinstall it. As of pip 10.0, you can run the following:

pip install --force-reinstall <corrupted package>

This will force pip to re-install <corrupted package> and all its dependencies.

If you want to re-download the packages instead of using the files from your pip cache, add the --no-cache-dir flag:

pip install --force-reinstall --no-cache-dir <corrupted package>

If you want to upgrade the package, you can run this instead:

pip install --upgrade <corrupted package>

The --upgrade flag will not mess with the dependencies of <corrupted package> unless you add the --force-reinstall flag.

If, for some reason, you want to re-install <corrupted package> and all its dependencies without first removing the current versions, you can run:

pip install --ignore-installed <corrupted package>

By the way, if you’re using a pip version that is less than 10.0, it’s time to update pip:

pip install --upgrade pip