pip download: get wheels for an offline install (pip install --no-index --find-links)

pip download -d wheels -r requirements.txt resolves the requirements, including every dependency, and saves the wheel (or source) files into the wheels folder without installing anything. Copy that folder to a machine without internet access and install from it with pip install --no-index --find-links wheels -r requirements.txt, which never contacts an index.

Download a package and its dependencies

echo "requests==2.32.3" > requirements.txt
pip download --disable-pip-version-check -q -d wheels -r requirements.txt
ls wheels | sed -E 's/-[0-9][^-]*-(py|cp).*$//' | sort

certifi
charset_normalizer
idna
requests
urllib3

requests brought its four dependencies along, so wheels contains everything an offline install of requirements.txt needs on the same kind of machine. The listing strips the version and platform part of each file name; the folder holds normal .whl files.

Download for another platform

pip download --disable-pip-version-check -q -d linux-wheels \
  --only-binary=:all: --platform manylinux2014_x86_64 --python-version 3.12 \
  "pyyaml==6.0.2"
ls linux-wheels

PyYAML-6.0.2-cp312-cp312-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl

pip chose the CPython 3.12 Linux x86-64 wheel even though the command ran elsewhere. Cross-platform downloads require --only-binary=:all: (or --no-deps), because pip cannot build source distributions for a foreign platform.

Install on the offline machine

pip install --no-index --find-links wheels -r requirements.txt

--no-index forbids PyPI and any configured index, and --find-links points pip at the folder (a URL also works). If something is missing, the install fails with No matching distribution found instead of quietly reaching the internet.

Options

Pitfalls

• Platform mismatch. Wheels with compiled code (numpy, pyyaml, cryptography) are specific to OS, CPU and Python version. Download for the target, not for the machine you are on.
• Index settings still apply to pip download: a custom index-url in pip's configuration is used, see pip.conf index-url.
• Hash checking. For a fully repeatable offline install, freeze with hashes (pip-compile --generate-hashes or uv pip compile --generate-hashes) and install with --require-hashes.
• Build tools. A source distribution in the folder still has to be built on the offline machine, which needs its build backend (for example setuptools and wheel) in the folder too.

How to confirm it worked

ls wheels should show one file per package of the resolved set. On the offline machine, pip install --no-index --find-links wheels -r requirements.txt finishing without errors, followed by pip check, confirms that nothing was missing.

FAQ