Installation¶

The recommended way to use cx_Freeze is in a virtual environment such as those provided by python -m venv , uv venv or conda . If you’re unfamiliar with Python virtual environments, check out the packaging user guide .

The latest version of cx_Freeze is available on:

PyPI: cx_Freeze

Conda-forge: cx_freeze

MSYS2: python-cx-freeze

Choose the Python package manager according to your system. See how the installation works with the most common ones.

pip

pip install --upgrade cx_Freeze

uv pip install --upgrade cx_Freeze

conda

conda install conda-forge:cx_freeze

msys2

pacman -S --needed --noconfirm $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-python-cx-freeze

Important

Please note that some operating systems might be equipped with the python3 and pip3 commands instead of python and pip (but they should be equivalent).

Python requirements¶

Python requirements are installed automatically by pip, uv, conda or pacman.

freeze-core >=0.6.1
packaging >=25.0
setuptools >=78.1.1,<83.0
filelock >=3.20.3           #  Linux
patchelf >=0.14,<0.18       #  Linux
dmgbuild >=1.6.1            #  macOS
lief >=0.16,<0.18           #  Windows
python-msilib >=0.4.1       #  Python 3.13+ on Windows

Note

If you have trouble with patchelf, check How to install Patchelf.
lief in conda-forge is named py-lief.

Download the source code¶

You can download and extract the source code found on Github to do a manual installation. Check Development.

Issue tracking¶

Bug report and issue tracking on Github issues .