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I've recently moved myself over to macOS so apologies if this is a very silly question, but I've installed Python 3 using brew install python, and although it's available to use as expected via a CLI, I can't for the life of me find IDLE anywhere on my system, and can't launch it using anything like Spotlight.

Have I missed something when installing?

Thanks!

gwood
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  • Try ```idle-python``` in the terminal –  Jun 02 '21 at 08:47
  • `zsh: command not found: idle-python` I'm afraid – gwood Jun 02 '21 at 08:50
  • I don't know for MacOS but for Ubuntu, for idle, it's ```sudo apt install idle-python3.8``` –  Jun 02 '21 at 08:50
  • I've tried `brew install idle-python` which would be the closest approximation I can think of to no avail. – gwood Jun 02 '21 at 08:52
  • Simply type idle –  Jun 02 '21 at 08:52
  • So that worked in terminal, but it's not ideal to have to launch this way every time. I'm wondering if there's a way to add it to my Applications folder somehow, which is what happens when Python is installed via the python.org installer. – gwood Jun 02 '21 at 08:56
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8792044/how-do-i-launch-idle-the-development-environment-for-python-on-mac-os-10-7 check –  Jun 02 '21 at 08:59

1 Answers1

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On my machine (macOS Monterey version 12.3.1) IDLE is symlinked at /usr/local/bin/idle3 i.e. I can run it using idle3 (note the 3, not just idle)

idle3

I had to also install Tkinter using brew install python-tk because on first run IDLE complained it couldn't import Tkinter

** IDLE can't import Tkinter.
Your Python may not be configured for Tk. **

brew install python-tk

After that IDLE worked as expected and a Python shell window is opened.

Thanks to the Installing Python 3 on MacOS DevDungeon page for pointing me at idle3 and this answer to the Tkinter: "Python may not be configured for Tk" question on Stack Overflow.

Owain Williams
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