Create empty conda environment
To create an environment that is absolutely empty, without python and/or any other default package, just make a new folder in envs
directory in your Anaconda
installation (Anaconda3 in this example):.
~\Anaconda3\envs>mkdir empy_env
The first time that you activate this environment a directory named Scripts
in Windows, bin
in Linux, with a few batch files are created. At the time of this post this works for Anaconda version 4.3.30 both in Windows and Linux.
I have noticed that @cel has suggested the same thing in the first comment under the question, but obviously it hasn't got the attention it deserves!
If you've created a create_default_packages
block in your .condarc
file, @joelion's answer will install those packages. If you don't want those, use the --no-default-packages
flag. For example:
conda create --name myenv python --no-default-packages
This is how to create a truly empty (light) conda_env with 0 packages:
conda create --name myenv --no-default-packages
it will take a few seconds to create and finish.
You can give a package name of just "python" to get a base, empty install.
conda create --name myenv python
conda create --name myenv python=3.4