Problems with “Matplotlib is building the font cache using fc-list. This may take a moment.” on MacoS

Question

I am running OS X 10.11.3, and I have installed Anaconda3-2.5.0-MacOSX-x86_64.pkg which includes Matplotlib 1.5.1. When I try to import Matplotlib in Jupyter with the follo

Answer 1

You can find this out with get_cachedir(). For example in python 2:

import matplotlib as mpl
print mpl.get_cachedir()

and in python 3:

import matplotlib as mpl
print(mpl.get_cachedir())

See here for more information

Answer 2

The files to be removed are under ~/.matplotlib, rather than ~/.cache/matplotlib (you'll also want to remove ~/.cache/fontconfig out of superstition, but the wrong .matplotlib path was the big thing)

You should see that pesky message again on your next run, then no more.