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Natively installing QIIME 2

This guide describes how to natively install the available QIIME 2 2024.5 distributions.

Miniconda

Installing Miniconda

Miniconda provides the conda environment and package manager, and is the recommended way to install QIIME 2. Follow the Miniconda instructions for downloading and installing Miniconda. You may choose either Miniconda2 or Miniconda3 (i.e. Miniconda Python 2 or 3). QIIME 2 will work with either version of Miniconda. It is important to follow all of the directions provided in the Miniconda instructions, particularly ensuring that you run conda init at the end of the installation process, to ensure that your Miniconda installation is fully installed and available for the following commands.

Updating Miniconda

After installing Miniconda and opening a new terminal, make sure you’re running the latest version of conda:

conda update conda

Install QIIME 2 within a conda environment

Once you have Miniconda installed, create a conda environment and install the QIIME 2 2024.5 distribution of your choice within the environment. We highly recommend creating a new environment specifically for the QIIME 2 distribution and release being installed, as there are many required dependencies that you may not want added to an existing environment. You can choose whatever name you’d like for the environment. In this example, we’ll name the environments qiime2-<distro>-2024.5 to indicate what QIIME 2 release is installed (i.e. 2024.5).

QIIME 2 Amplicon Distribution

From the above tabs, please choose the installation instructions that are appropriate for your platform.

conda env create -n qiime2-amplicon-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/amplicon/qiime2-amplicon-2024.5-py39-osx-conda.yml

These instructions are for users with Apple Silicon chips (M1, M2, etc), and configures the installation of QIIME 2 in Rosetta 2 emulation mode.

CONDA_SUBDIR=osx-64 conda env create -n qiime2-amplicon-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/amplicon/qiime2-amplicon-2024.5-py39-osx-conda.yml
conda activate qiime2-amplicon-2024.5
conda config --env --set subdir osx-64
conda env create -n qiime2-amplicon-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/amplicon/qiime2-amplicon-2024.5-py39-linux-conda.yml

These instructions are identical to the Linux instructions and are intended for users of the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

conda env create -n qiime2-amplicon-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/amplicon/qiime2-amplicon-2024.5-py39-linux-conda.yml

QIIME 2 Metagenome Distribution

From the above tabs, please choose the installation instructions that are appropriate for your platform.

conda env create -n qiime2-metagenome-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/metagenome/qiime2-metagenome-2024.5-py39-osx-conda.yml

These instructions are for users with Apple Silicon chips (M1, M2, etc), and configures the installation of QIIME 2 in Rosetta 2 emulation mode.

CONDA_SUBDIR=osx-64 conda env create -n qiime2-metagenome-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/metagenome/qiime2-metagenome-2024.5-py39-osx-conda.yml
conda activate qiime2-metagenome-2024.5
conda config --env --set subdir osx-64
conda env create -n qiime2-metagenome-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/metagenome/qiime2-metagenome-2024.5-py39-linux-conda.yml

These instructions are identical to the Linux instructions and are intended for users of the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

conda env create -n qiime2-metagenome-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/metagenome/qiime2-metagenome-2024.5-py39-linux-conda.yml

QIIME 2 Tiny Distribution

From the above tabs, please choose the installation instructions that are appropriate for your platform.

conda env create -n qiime2-tiny-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/tiny/qiime2-tiny-2024.5-py39-osx-conda.yml

These instructions are for users with Apple Silicon chips (M1, M2, etc), and configures the installation of QIIME 2 in Rosetta 2 emulation mode.

CONDA_SUBDIR=osx-64 conda env create -n qiime2-tiny-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/tiny/qiime2-tiny-2024.5-py39-osx-conda.yml
conda activate qiime2-tiny-2024.5
conda config --env --set subdir osx-64
conda env create -n qiime2-tiny-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/tiny/qiime2-tiny-2024.5-py39-linux-conda.yml

These instructions are identical to the Linux instructions and are intended for users of the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

conda env create -n qiime2-tiny-2024.5 --file https://data.qiime2.org/distro/tiny/qiime2-tiny-2024.5-py39-linux-conda.yml

Activate the conda environment

Now that you have a QIIME 2 environment, activate it using the environment’s name:

conda activate qiime2-<distro>-2024.5

To deactivate an environment, run conda deactivate.

Test your installation

You can test your installation by activating your QIIME 2 environment and running:

qiime --help

If no errors are reported when running this command, the installation was successful!

Next steps

Now that you have a QIIME 2 distribution installed, check out the q2cli docs to get familiar with the QIIME 2 command-line interface (it is used extensively in the tutorials). After that, try out the QIIME 2 tutorials for examples of using QIIME 2 to analyze microbiome datasets. You might also try installing other QIIME 2 interfaces.

How do I update to the newest version of QIIME 2?

In order to to update/upgrade to the newest release, you simply install the newest version in a new conda environment by following the instructions above. Then you will have two conda environments, one with the older version of QIIME 2 and one with the newer version.

(Re-)Activating QIIME 2

If at any point during the analysis the QIIME 2 conda environment is closed or deactivated, QIIME 2 2024.5 can be activated (or reactivated) by running the following command:

conda activate qiime2-<distro>-2024.5

To determine the currently active conda environment, run the following command and look for the line that starts with “active environment”:

conda info