How to rename a virtualenv in Python?

By default virtualenv does not support the renaming of environments. It is safer to just delete the virtualenv directory and create a new one with the correct name. You can do this by:

  1. Activate your virtualenv: source vnev/bin/activate
  2. Create a requirements.txt of currently installed packages: pip freeze > requirements.txt
  3. Delete the misspelled virtualenv: rm -r vnev/
  4. Create a new virtualenv with correct name: virtualenv venv
  5. Activate new virtualenv: source venv/bin/activate
  6. Install packages from requirements.txt: pip install -r requirements.txt

If recreating is not an option there are 3rd party tools like virtualenv-mv that might be helpful.

Alternatively you can use virtualenvwrapper which provides the cpvirtualenv command to copy or rename virtualenvs.

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