How to Install `pillow` in Python

v12.2.0 General Purpose Python >=3.10

Python Imaging Library (fork)

Install pip install pillow

What is pillow?

Python Imaging Library (fork)

Pillow is the friendly PIL fork by Jeffrey 'Alex' Clark and contributors. PIL is the Python Imaging Library by Fredrik Lundh and contributors. As of 2019, Pillow development is supported by Tidelift.

The Python Imaging Library adds image processing capabilities to your Python interpreter.

This library provides extensive file format support, an efficient internal representation, and fairly powerful image processing capabilities.

PyPI page → Author: Jeffrey 'Alex' Clark <aclark@aclark.net>

Quick Start

Minimal example to get started with pillow:

from PIL import Image

img = Image.open("photo.jpg")
print(img.size)   # (width, height)
print(img.mode)   # RGB

thumb = img.resize((200, 200))
thumb.save("thumbnail.jpg")

Installation

pip (standard)

pip install pillow

Virtual environment (recommended)

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate   # Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install pillow

pip3

pip3 install pillow

conda

conda install -c conda-forge pillow

Poetry

poetry add pillow

Verify the Installation

After installing, confirm the package is available:

python -c "import PIL; print(PIL.__version__)"

If this prints a version number, installation succeeded. If you see a ModuleNotFoundError, see the errors section below.

Installation Errors

Common errors when installing pillow with pip.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'PIL'

Cause: The package is not installed in the current Python environment.

Fix: Run pip install pillow. If using a virtual environment, ensure it is activated first.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'PIL' (installed but still failing)

Cause: pip installed the package into a different Python than the one running your script.

Fix: Use python -m pip install pillow to install into the interpreter you are running.

ImportError: cannot import name 'X' from 'PIL'

Cause: The function or class does not exist in the installed version.

Fix: Check the version with pip show pillow and upgrade with pip install --upgrade pillow.

pip: command not found

Cause: pip is not in PATH or Python was not added to PATH during installation.

Fix: Try python -m pip install pillow. On macOS/Linux try pip3.

PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

Cause: No write access to the system Python package directory.

Fix: Use a virtual environment, or add --user: pip install --user pillow

SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED

Cause: pip cannot verify PyPI's SSL certificate — common behind corporate proxies.

Fix: Try: pip install --trusted-host pypi.org --trusted-host files.pythonhosted.org pillow

Runtime Errors

Common errors when using pillow after installation.

OSError: cannot identify image file

Cause: The file is not a valid image, is corrupted, or the path is wrong.

Fix: Verify the path exists with os.path.exists(path). Confirm it's a valid image by opening it in a viewer.

PIL.UnidentifiedImageError

Cause: Pillow cannot determine the image format from the file header.

Fix: Ensure the file is not truncated or zero bytes. Check if the extension matches the actual format.

Recent Releases

Version	Released
`12.2.0` latest	2026-04-01
`12.1.1`	2026-02-11
`12.1.0`	2026-01-02
`12.0.0`	2025-10-15
`11.3.0`	2025-07-01

Full release history on PyPI →

Manage pillow

Upgrade to latest version

pip install --upgrade pillow

Install a specific version

pip install pillow==12.2.0

Uninstall

pip uninstall pillow

Check what is installed

pip show pillow

Last updated: 2026-04-11 • Data from PyPI

How to Install pillow in Python