Installing and Downloading Pytorch in Pycharm: Step-by-Step Guide for Windows and Mac Users [2024]

PyTorch is an open-source machine learning library developed by Facebook’s AI Research lab that provides support for building deep learning models. It is widely used by researchers and developers for tasks such as natural language processing, computer vision, and more. If you are using PyCharm as your Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and want to install PyTorch to start working on deep learning projects, this tutorial will guide you through the steps to download and install PyTorch in PyCharm on both Windows and Mac operating systems.

Step 1: Install PyCharm

Before you can install PyTorch in PyCharm, you need to have PyCharm installed on your system. If you don’t already have PyCharm installed, you can download it from the JetBrains website. Simply go to the JetBrains website, download the PyCharm version that is compatible with your operating system, and follow the installation instructions.

Step 2: Create a Virtual Environment

It is always recommended to work within a virtual environment when developing Python projects to avoid conflicts with system-level packages. To create a virtual environment in PyCharm, follow these steps:

1. Open PyCharm and create a new Python project.
2. Go to File -> Settings -> Project: Your_Project_Name -> Python Interpreter.
3. Click on the gear icon next to the interpreter dropdown and select "Add."
4. Choose "Virtualenv Environment" and click "OK."
5. Select the base interpreter (or create a new one) and choose a location for the virtual environment.
6. Click "OK" to create the virtual environment.

Step 3: Install PyTorch

Now that you have a virtual environment set up in PyCharm, you can proceed to install PyTorch. Follow these steps to install PyTorch in PyCharm:

1. Activate the virtual environment by selecting it from the Python Interpreter dropdown in the toolbar at the top right corner of the PyCharm window.
2. Open the Terminal window in PyCharm by going to View -> Tool Windows -> Terminal.
3. In the Terminal window, type the following command to install PyTorch using pip:

   pip install torch torchvision

4. Press Enter to execute the command. PyTorch and its dependencies will be downloaded and installed in your virtual environment.

Step 4: Verify the Installation

To verify that PyTorch has been successfully installed in PyCharm, you can write a simple Python script that imports PyTorch and runs a basic operation. Here is an example script that you can use to verify the installation:

import torch

# Create a tensor
x = torch.tensor([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])
print(x)

Save the script and run it in PyCharm. If you see the output tensor [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] printed in the console, it means that PyTorch has been successfully installed and is working in PyCharm.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have covered the steps to install PyTorch in PyCharm on both Windows and Mac operating systems. By creating a virtual environment and using pip to install PyTorch, you can start working on deep learning projects within the PyCharm IDE. Make sure to keep your PyTorch installation updated and explore the various features and functionalities that PyTorch has to offer for deep learning applications. I hope this tutorial was helpful, and you are now ready to start building and training deep learning models using PyTorch in PyCharm. Happy coding!