How can I install a conda environment when offline?

I would like to create a conda environment on a machine that has no network connection. What I've done so far is:

On a machine that is connected to the internet:

conda create -n python3 python=3.4 anaconda

Conda archived all of the relevant packages into \Anaconda\pkgs. I put these into a separate folder and moved it to the machine with no network connection. The folder has the path PATHTO\Anaconda_py3\win-64

I tried

conda create -n python=3.4 anaconda --offline --channel PATHTO\Anaconda_py3

This gives the error message

Fetching package metadata:
Error: No packages found in current win-64 channels matching: anaconda

You can search for this package on Binstar with

    binstar search -t conda anaconda

What am I doing wrong? How do I tell conda to create an environment based on the packages in this directory?

You could try cloning root which is the base env.

conda create -n yourenvname --clone root

Short answer: copy the whole environment from another machine with the same OS.

Why

Dependency. A package depends on other packages. When you install a package online, the package manager conda analyzes the package dependencies and install all the required packages for you.

The dependency is especially heavy in anaconda. Cause anaconda is a meta package depends on another 160+ packages.

> Meta packages,are packages do not contain actual softwares and simply depend on other packages to be installed.

It's totally absurd to download all these dependencies one by one and install them on the offline machine.

Detail Solution

1. Get conda installed on another machine with same OS. Install the packages you need in an isolated virtual environment.

   # create a env named "myvenv", name it whatever you want
   # and install the package into this env
   conda create -n myvenv --copy anaconda
   

   --copy is used to > Install all packages using copies instead of hard- or soft-linking.

2. Find where the environments are stored with

   conda info
   

   The 1st value of key "envs directories" is the location. Go there and package the whole sub-folder named "myvenv" (the env name in previous step) into an archive.

3. Copy the archive to your offline machine. Check "envs directories" from conda info. And extract the environment from the archive into the env directory on the offline machine.

4. Done.

In addition to copying the pkgs folder, you need to index it, so that conda knows how to find the dependencies. See this ticket for more details and this script for an example of indexing the pkgs folder.

Using --unknown as @asmeurer suggests will only work if the package you're trying to install has no dependencies, otherwise you will get a "Could not find some dependencies" error.

Cloning is another option, but this will give you all root packages, which may not be what you want.

Have you tried without the --offline?

conda create -n anaconda python=3.4 --channel PATHTO\Anaconda_py3

This works for me if I am not connected to the Internet if I do have anaconda already on the machine but in another location. If you are connected to the Internet when you run this command you will probably get an error associated with not finding something on Binstar.

I'm not sure whether this contradicts the other answers or is the same but I followed the instructions in the conda documentation and set up a channel on the local file system.

Then it's a simple matter of moving new package files to the local directory, running conda index on the channel sub-folder (which should have a name like linux-64).

I also set the Anaconda config setting offline to True as described here but not sure if that was essential.

Hope that helps.

A lot of the answers here are not 100% related to the "when offline" part. They talk about the rest of OP's question, not reflected in question title.

If you came here because you need offline env creation on top of an existing Anaconda install you can try:

conda create --offline --name $NAME

You can find the --offline flag documented here

The pkgs directory is not a channel. The flag you are looking for is --unknown, which causes conda to include files in the pkgs directory even if they aren't found in one of the channels.

Here's what worked for me in Linux -

(a) Create a blank environment - Just create an empty directory under $CONDA_HOME/envs. Verify with - conda info --envs.

(b) Activate the new env - source activate

(c) Download the appropriate package (*.bz2) from https://anaconda.org/anaconda/repo on a machine with internet connection and move it to the isolated host.

(d) Install using local package - conda install . For example - conda install python-3.6.4-hc3d631a_1.tar.bz2, where python-3.6.4-hc3d631a_1.tar.bz2 exists in the current dir.

That's it. You can verify by the usual means (python -V, conda list -n ). All related packages can be installed in the same manner.

I found the simplest method to be as follows:

1. Run 'conda create --name name package' with no special switches
2. Copy the URL of the first package it tried (unsuccessfully) to download
3. Use the URL on a connected machine to fetch the tar.bz2
4. Copy the tar.bz2 to the offline machine's /home/user/anaconda3/pkgs
5. Deploy the tar.bz2 in place
6. Delete the now unneeded tar.bz2
7. Repeat until the 'conda create' command succeeds

Here's a solution that may help. It's not very pretty but it gets the job done. So i suppose you have a machine where you have a conda environment in which you've installed all the packages you need. I will refer to this as ENV1 You will have to go to this environment directory and locate it. It is usually found in \Anaconda3\envs. I suggest compressing the folder but you could just use it as is. Copy the desired environment folder into your offline machine's directory for anaconda environments. This first step should get your new environment to respond to commands like conda activate.

You will notice though that software like spyder and jupyter don't work anymore (probably because of path differences). My solution to this was to clone the base environment in the offline machine into a new environment that i will refer to as ENV2. What you need to do then is copy the contents of ENV2 into those of ENV1 and replace files.

This should overwrite the files related to spyder, jupyter.. and keep your imported packages intact.