How to make Jupyter notebook use PYTHONPATH in system variables without hacking sys.path directly?

Question

Same problem as in this question sys.path different in Jupyter and Python - how to import own modules in Jupyter?. In pure Python, it prepends my system environment variable

Answer 1

JupyterLab reuses the PYTHONPATH on Linux, so I created a file like

#!/bin/bash
# add your path
export PYTHONPATH="$PYTHONPATH:/opt/your/path"
# start JupyterLab using an environment
/opt/anaconda/envs/MY_ENVIRONMENT/bin/jupyter-lab

saved it as start_my_jupyterlab, make it executeable with chmod a+x start_my_jupyterlab and run it on the shell with start_my_jupyterlab.

Answer 2

Jupyter uses its own JUPYTER_PATH environment variable.

Answer 3

--Just chiming in here since the accepted answer didn't give the complete solution--

You can add the path to your modules to the JUPYTER_PATH environment variable, just the same as you would for modifying the PYTHONPATH environment variable:

export JUPYTER_PATH="${JUPYTER_PATH}:/path/to/add/here/"

If you're on a Mac or other Unix system, you would just drop the above line into your ~/.bash_profile

Hint: make sure you run source ~/.bash_profile to enact the changes and close and restart your jupyter notebook.

Answer 4

Use simply the PYTHONPATH.

export PYTHONPATH=/Users/user/my-other-library/
jupyter notebook

I just tested with the newest jupyterlab-2.1.2 and it works.