To install the Adafruit MicroPython tool (ampy) you'll first need to make sure you have Python installed on your computer.  The tool will work with either Python 2.7.x or 3.x so you can use whichever version you prefer.

For Linux and Mac OSX you probably already have a version of python installed--trying running the python or pip command to see that it's available.  If you don't see python installed consult your package manager or a tool like Homebrew to easily install it.

For Windows you'll need to install Python and be sure to check the box during installation to add python to your system path.

Once Python is avaialble on your system you can easily install ampy from the Python package index.  If you're using Python 2.7.x open a terminal and run this command:

Note: If you have both Python 2.7.x and Python 3.x on your Windows computer, make sure you are running the Python 3.x version of pip.  Having both versions of Python in your PATH statement is not enough. If the install of ampy is successful, you'll see it in your C:\Python37Path\Scripts\ folder, or replacing Python37Path with your local install path.

Note on some Linux and Mac OSX systems you might need to install as root with sudo:

Or if you'd like to use Python 3.x run the pip3 command instead (using sudo if necessary):

Finally in some rare cases like Mac OSX with Homebrew and multiple Python versions installed you might need to use the pip2 command to explicitly install in Python 2.7.x:

Make sure the pip command finishes without an error.  If you see an error then go back and check you have python installed and are running it as root with sudo if necessary.

To check that ampy installed successfully run the following command to print its usage:

You should see usage information for the tool printed, like what commands it has and options for using them.  If you see an error instead go back and carefully check the pip install command above succeeded, and that python is in your system path.

Upgrade Ampy

If you installed ampy with pip you can run a small command to check for an updated version and install it.  Just add the --upgrade option to the install commands above, for example to upgrade ampy with Python 3 you can run:

Make sure to add --upgrade to the end of the pip install command you use to install ampy.  If you forget the upgrade parameter pip won't install the latest version!

Source Install

If you'd like to install ampy from its source on GitHub you can do so easily with a few commands.  If you followed the above steps to install from the Python package index this isn't necessary, but if you'd like the current code or are perhaps modifying it then you'll want to install from source.

First download the source or use the git tool to clone it from GitHub:

Then in a terminal navigate to the directory with the cloned or extracted source and run the following command to install with Python 2.7.x:

Note on some Linux and Mac OSX machines you might need to run as root with sudo:

Or to install for Python 3.x use the python3 command (using sudo when necessary too):

Carefully inspect the output of the command to make sure it finished without an error or exception.  You should see something like 'Finished processing dependencies for adafruit-ampy...' as the last line.  Once installed in this way the ampy tool should be available in your path just like if installed from the Python package index.

One final way to install ampy from source is in develop mode, this way the cloned / downloaded code will actually be the code Python runs instead of copying and installing it into an internal Python module cache.  This is handy if you're working on the code and want to see your changes immediately updated.  To install in develop mode just run the setup.py command above but change install to develop.

Also note on Python 2.7.x if you plan to run the unit tests in the source code you will need the mock module installed: